Only Time
by Cookyie
Summary: AU in which Gail and Holly meet in the world of high school.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Hello all! This will be an AU fic in which Gail/Holly meet in high school and then I shall jump ahead to present time (aka Season 4). I would like to note that I saw this idea as a tumblr post somewhere in the gail peck tag, but for the life of me cannot remember who wrote that post and have no idea where it is. So if you were the one who wrote it or know who wrote it, please drop me a message so I can give a proper shoutout, because really—without that fic prompt, I wouldn't have come up with this story.

Also, note number 2: I am American, so the high school experience that I am going to write about may seem, well...super "American". I think I'll keep it that way because that's the life I know best. So I apologize in advance to any Canadians out there if it's an inaccurate representation of Canadian high school life.

Oh and disclaimer: I own notthiiing related to Rookie Blue/its characters. Zip, nada.

All mistakes are mine, as usual.

I guess that's all for now. Happy Reading!

* * *

Today was the first day of the rest of my life.

Okay, that statement may have been an exaggeration. But at the very least, today _was_ the first official day of senior year. And at the end of senior year came college. And college meant a chance to finally escape the Peck household that I've been forced to live in for the past 18 years.

And we all knew how much I needed that.

I finished getting dressed and headed downstairs to find breakfast. It was no surprise that my parents were already gone. They were usually gone by the time I started school anyway. Whatwith my mother being superintendent of the police division in the city and my father being an inspector in the city next to us, I was surprised sometimes that they're even home at all. Which was just fine for me. I loved being at home alone. Especially since Steve left for college, it was nice to have quiet in the morning, instead of waiting for some dickhead to finish doing his hair.

I looked in our refrigerator and found...well, basically nothing to eat. Again, no surprise to me. I almost ate every meal outside since my mother was rarely home to cook or do anything. I had no idea what she and my father ate on a regular basis anyway. But we made enough money that we were able to live that kind of lifestyle. I decided that it was a donut kind of morning so I decided to just drop by the bakery near school to pick up one up.

As I drove out of our neighborhood, I glanced curiously at the house a couple houses away from ours. It had been on sale all summer and I think it only had recently been sold. To whom, I have no idea. But I had seen a couple moving trucks here and there when I ventured outside during the last couple weeks. I hadn't seen any sign of the family that moved in though. Or person, whichever. As long as they didn't have snotty yelling children, we wouldn't have a problem.

The only time I ever left the house during the summer was to intern at the local police station. My mother helped me land the position and I mostly spent it filling out shit paperwork and getting officers coffee. I actually got to know one of the officers pretty well-Oliver Shaw. He had already been an officer for 3 years and he'd just gotten married and hadn't stopped talking about his wife the entire summer. Oliver was 10 years older, but he had been really easy to talk to. And he had been really nice to me, offering me ride-alongs when he had the time. He actually made me think that going into the family business wouldn't be too bad.

But other than that, I had been at home. My social life had been nonexistent because my asshat of a boyfriend, Nick, decided to do a last minute summer stint counseling at a kids' summer sports camp in the mountains. He and my other friend Andy were gone all summer. And my social life went with them. I had no idea why anybody would voluntarily want to spend time with yelling, kicking, and screaming little monsters that also double as little petri dishes of germs...but to each his own, I suppose. Chris and Dov were my friends too, but they kind of always have had their own little thing going on. I saw them every now and then, but not on a regular basis.

Apparently though, Nick and Andy only got back last night and evidently, he crashed to sleep right away. He just sent me a simple blunt two-worded text- "I'm back." He was gonna get it as soon as I got to school. One cannot simply disappear all summer like that and announce one's return like that. Unacceptable.

That delicious smell of bread and that good glaze stuff hit me as soon as I walked through the bakery door. I got in line behind everybody else who wanted their donuts and pastries, rolling my eyes at the douche in front who was ordering one of those complicated coffee drinks and demanding a fresh pastry from the oven.

When I got the cash register, the owner, Mr. Buckner smiled a smile of relief at me.

"Hey Gail, how's it going?"

"Alright. First day of school. Needed a pick-me-up. Hit me with your fattiest and most unhealthy one."

"You got it," he grinned, ringing me up.

I came into this bakery often enough that he knew what was up. Sometimes I stopped by after school too, just to kill some time while waiting for Nick to finish his basketball practice. Mr. Buckner was a nice old guy. He wasn't old enough that he smelled like lint or mothballs all the time, but old enough to be like...my dad.

As I entered the school building munching on that delicious jelly-filled donut, I could almost smell the freshmen fear. They gathered by their lockers in tiny herds, almost like animals waiting to be hunted. I was willing to bet that if you even stomped towards one, they'd scatter and run in all directions.

Instead of heading for my own locker, I stomped straight towards Nick's in a separate quad. To my surprise (and to his demise), he was already there, pulling books out of his backpack to stuff into his locker.

"Collins!" I hollered with my mouth still half full, while still a couple feet away. I saw him freeze mid-air while placing a book inside, and his head dropped. Oh, he knew what was coming.

He turned around sheepishly, beaming like an idiot. "Gail, hey!" He waved—also like an idiot.

"Don't you 'hey' me," I snarled. I finally came within arm's reach of him and reached out to sock him in the shoulder with my free hand. "No contact for months and just a measly text message?"

"Ow!" he whined, grabbing his shoulder. "C'mon Gail, you know cell phones didn't work up there. And when we did have time to use the landline phone, there were always some kid that was throwing up somewhere that needed my attention," he tacked on a cheesy grin at the end, and put on his damn puppy eyes.

I swore in my head. When he put on that expression, it was way too hard to stay mad at him. I huffed loudly and crossed my arms, staring him down, waiting to see if he was willing to grovel some more.

"I missed you," he added, reaching out with his arms to envelope me in a hug. That was it; after he wrapped his arms around me, I gave in. I hated him at the moment but simultaneously just couldn't stay angry.

"You're an idiot," I muttered into his shoulder.

"But you like me anyway," he replied, using one of his hands to pluck my half-eaten donut away from me. He was lucky that I was feeling generous today because otherwise I would've bitten his head off for stealing my food.

But as he stood there, eating _my_ donut over my head, I was just glad that he was back. As clueless as he was sometimes, he was still my boyfriend and I depended on him like I depended on nobody else. It was hard enough to keep my friends close but I was lucky to find him able and willing. I hated all that corny lovey dovey shit, but it was nice to have somebody to talk to. Somebody to order around, really.

"Don't leave for an entire summer ever again," I pulled away and lectured him sternly. "Or else somebody might find your body in a ditch years later."

"Geez, Gail," he replied, wiping crumbs from his mouth. "Sometimes you scare me."

"Whatever. Did Andy have a good time too? Did the two of you have fun missing me?" I grabbed the donut, what was left of it anyway, and swallowed it.

"Oh. Uh, yeah she had a good time too, I think. It seemed like it anyway," Nick said, shrugging. "You know how she's into that kind of sport stuff."

"Yeah, yeah. Both of you are. I'll never understand it."

And with that, the bell rang and it was off to class. I already knew I wouldn't have any classes together with Nick this year. We were just on different paths and taking completely different classes and electives. He wanted to go straight into the military after school anyway. I...well, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do yet, but I was sure that it would definitely have to do with law enforcement. It kind of came with the Peck name. Which was fine with me, because I thought I liked the idea of ordering people around while armed. Plus Oliver seemed like he enjoyed it.

Luckily this year, at least one of my other friends was in every one of my classes. Except for my last period—I wasn't looking forward to that at all. Actually, Andy was in three of my classes before lunch. Classes were bad enough, so it helped to have a friend to get through the pain together.

But I already started zoning out of classes by 3rd period. By lunchtime, I felt like I had been in school for years already. I couldn't wait to start my college applications and get the hell out of here. At lunch, our group finally reunited—Andy, Chris, Dov, and Nick. Andy and Nick told stories about their kids from camp and even though I didn't admit it out loud, it actually sounded kinda fun. A lot more fun than my summer alternating between sitting at home and sitting in a corner at the police station anyway. Steve hadn't been at home either—he elected to spend the summer before college with a couple of his friends traveling the country. One last-ditch effort to be an idiot before he had to get it together was my guess.

So I spent my lunch period munching on the school's nasty burrito with questionable content while listening to the others reliving their summer experiences. It wasn't the most exciting lunch period, but I was glad that things were back to normal. Andy was back. Nick was back. That was all I needed.

Andy and I had been friends since middle school, when she moved here in the middle of the school year. We were assigned seatmates, and at first she was scared of talking to me (but she would never admit it if you asked her), but eventually she toughened up and managed to cross into the friendship side of things. She was upbeat and she tried to be positive, which was what I needed sometimes.

And Nick came later. He transferred into our high school the summer before junior year. He transferred in as some big hotshot basketball player. He went straight to the varsity team, which Steve played on as well.

My mother ordered me to attend Steve's basketball games when they were at home court, so I sat up in the bleachers doing my homework instead. I was in the corner of said bleachers when Nick had come bounding up, all sweaty and gross after the game was over. He wasn't put off by my defensive remarks and thus with a few well-put pick up lines, he managed to weasel my phone number out of me. And that was that.

Fifth period P.E. passed by in a blur with Dov, and finally _finally_, we reached the last period of the day. The class that I had been dreading all day because I knew nobody in the class. And it was some bullshit honors biology class. I hated science classes the most. Give me books, give me history, but don't give me a fucking microscope or scalpel. And as for taking the honors course instead of the regular course, I certainly wasn't one of those smart nerdy kids. But I was good enough to get into the honors classes. Yeah, they were harder but it was better than spending time with goofballs in regular classes. In those periods, I sometimes felt like I was surrounded by apes. So I went the honors class route.

I picked a seat at the lab table right by the door so I could rocket out of there after class. After the bell rang to signify the beginning of class, the teacher, Mr. Anderson rose from his seat in the front and cleared his throat loudly.

"Good afternoon, class," he announced in the nasal-iest voice I had ever heard. This was going to be great to listen to all year.

A couple people muttered back a reply, but most of them just ignored him, waiting for further instructions.

"Due to my experience last year with free for all seating, I have decided that this year to implement a seating chart instead."

Immediately, an uproar. Oh, he had the class's attention now. I couldn't believe it myself. A senior class being forced to follow a seating chart? Who was he kidding? We weren't in elementary school for Christ's sake. I already hated this class the most and we were barely 5 minutes into the period.

Mr. Anderson held up a hand and tutted. Like, actually tutted. "No complaints. I've already made up my mind. Now, if you could all gather up your belongings and stand up here by my desk. I'll go around and call you all by alphabetical order. The person with whom you share a lab table with will be your assigned lab partner for the semester."

The whole class rose as one, grumbling and screeching their chairs while pulling backpacks on their shoulders. I gathered my stuff and stood by the door, impatiently tapping my foot, waiting for name to be called.

"Gail Peck."

I winced at sound of his voice calling my name and walked over to plop myself in my stupid assigned seat.

"Thomas Scott," was the next name called. I cringed and suppressed a loud groan. God that kid was an asshole. Some kid already sitting down called out, "He dropped the class."

"Okay then. We'll skip him for now. Holly Stewart."

I breathed a sigh of relief as I watched a brunette girl with glasses emerge from behind the remaining kids still standing in the front of the room. I eyed her closely as I'd never seen her before in our school. Maybe she was one of those smart junior kids who skipped classes or something? She certainly looked like she was the type—she carried a butt ton of textbooks and she looked like she was about to collapse under her backpack's weight.

She dropped her stack of textbooks on the lab table with a giant thud.

"I see somebody is biting off more than she can chew," I remarked snidely.

Holly turned to me slowly, grinning while pushing up her glasses slowly up her nose—total nerd sign number two. "Nah, I've got a big mouth. Don't you worry about my bite."

I hadn't expected that response, so I didn't have anything to say back to her. Usually the typical nerds would ignore me or roll their eyes at me. Certainly not come up with an actual line. And I thought maybe she wasn't so much of a nerd after all despite her outward appearances. Only time would tell. Time was the ultimate revealer of any and all things, in my opinion.

Anderson finished seating the rest of the class and called us back into order, looking very pleased with himself. He laid into us, under the strictest terms, that this would not be a class to slack off in. The normal bullshit. I'd heard it all before. Then he dove straight into the biology material. I didn't feel much like taking notes on the first day so I sat there waiting for the bell to ring. I propped my chin on my elbows and tried not to fall asleep. My new lab partner, on the other hand, was scribbling away in her notebook like her life depended on it and like there was going to be a final the very next day. When I snuck a peek over at her paper, I saw that her writing was oh-so-neat. Maybe she was a robot. I didn't know it was possible to write that fast and write that neatly. Wasn't it that you either had to sacrifice speed or neatness? Apparently not for one Holly Stewart. Fast and neat.

Anderson clearly had finished his teaching material with less than five minutes of class to go, so he stood there, fumbling through his desk and tried to make up some more bullshit to kill the time. But he had already lost the class's attention. He may have tried to put us into a seating chart, but we sure as hell were going to do things our way. He finally threw his hands up in the air as the class noise slowly increased as people started conversations without bothering to whisper and sat down in his chair, and waited glumly for the bell to ring like the rest of us.

Despite the fact Anderson had stopped talking, Holly continued to scribble in her notebook in strict fashion.

"You know he stopped talking right?" I told her flatly.

"Yeah. So? Who said we only could take notes while the teacher's talking?" she shot back, without even looking at me.

I found myself rendered speechless again. I couldn't get a handle on this girl. At the very least, she would definitely be able to help me in this class if I needed it.

I gathered myself and got to the point. "So you actually know what you're doing then right?"

"Oh yes. I plan to go into the medical field in the future. Not sure which specific route to take yet. There's so many options! General practice, ophthalmology, surgery—even within surgery there are multiple sub paths. Or there's lab work, research, maybe even neurology? But I heard that field may be harder—" she finally put down her pen and turned to me excitedly, her eyes wide open with enthusiasm, about to take a huge breath to undoubtedly continue down her crazed rant about medical stuff.

Her words were making my head spin. "Why are you saying all these words?" I asked bitingly. I hadn't asked for her life story. Surprisingly, her only response was a head tilt and slight smile.

I barged on. "Look. I didn't ask about your future plans, lady. As long as you can help me pass the class, then that's all I need to know." And right then I decided once and for all that this one Holly Stewart was definitely one of the biggest nerds I had ever met, albeit a slightly stranger one.

She scrutinized me over the top of her glasses, suddenly looking much older than a teenager. "That depends. What can you offer me?"

"Who said it had to be a two-way deal?"

"Well it just doesn't seem fair for this to be a one-way deal. I mean isn't that the definition of a deal? An exchange, no?" she pondered thoughtfully.

Before I could find an answer for her, the bell rang, signifying the end of the school day. I silently gave thanks to the school system and hastily shoved my notebook (still blank) back into my bag and hopped out of my seat. I just wanted to get home to take a nap. This first day business was way too tiring for me. I muttered a hasty goodbye to Holly and had only taken two steps away from the table when I heard a "Hey!"

I swiveled on the spot, wondering what else this girl wanted from me.

"You can help me carry my books to my car. How's that for today?"

I could hardly believe my ears. She was definitely a strange one. But I took a look at the stack of her books and for a tiny split second, I felt bad for her.

"Fine."

I grabbed half of her bookstack and waited for her to finish packing up. "Come on, this stuff is heavy."

"You're telling me."

She flipped her long hair over her shoulder, and for another split second, I marveled at how she managed to pull off the slow motion hair toss. I had no idea what to think of this Holly Stewart. One second she looked like a nerd, the next second she was spouting her mouth off at me. And now it turned out that she was really good at the hair toss. And she was shameless in asking for total strangers for help in carrying books. I never even asked Nick to carry my books for me!

I followed her out the classroom door and into the parking lot. She walked somewhat unburdened now, since she dumped half that burden on me. Usually with the outcasts in school, you could just tell from the way they walked that they had no confidence in themselves. No self-esteem. They walked slowly or shuffled with their books hugged to their chest, always with their head bowed down looking at the ground. Not Holly. She walked swiftly, purposely, with her head up and hair flowing in the wind. She didn't even look back to see if I was following her. For all she knew, I could've run away with her precious textbooks and she would've never seen them again. But I guess she just had that blind faith in me—for whatever reason I couldn't fathom.

"God, how far did you park? Did you plan ahead for this torture?" I complained, as it felt like she was leading me across a desert trek. It felt like we had already been walking for hours and the books were slowly getting heavier with every step.

She ignored me but finally gestured to a beat-up sedan at the end of the parking lot. I _thought_ it may have been a really old Honda. It wasn't too beat-up like it came out of a trashcan. But definitely a step or two lower than the BMW my mother bought for me to drive. She was a woman all about status and power. If I were to be entirely truthful, I supposed I would have to admit that I liked driving it. But it came at the expense of my mother's nagging.

"Nice car," I couldn't help but remarking.

"Thanks," she said. If she could tell I was being sarcastic, she ignored it. "It's my mom's baby. She finally got a new car over the summer and passed this one onto me. It's a beaut, huh?"

"Uh, sure," I said, while waiting for her to open the door so I could toss the books and bounce out of there.

She finally did so and I flung the books into her passenger seat without a second thought.

"Hey! Peck, those are expensive, you know," Holly reprimanded. She brushed past me and placed her own half on the seat, rearranging the books so that they stacked neatly on the seat instead.

I stood behind her watching impatiently. "Well, _Stewart_," I said, making sure to emphasize her last name, "You know hundreds of students have already probably used those right? Kids never take good care of these books anyway."

"Doesn't mean we have to do the same thing. Why make it worse for the next person?" Holly shut the car door carefully, without slamming it like the way I usually shut doors.

"Whatever." I said, rolling my eyes. "Did you want something else from me?" I added sarcastically.

"No, I think I'm good now. I'll let you know if I need anything else," she told me seriously. Or was it sarcasm? I couldn't tell because her mouth turned slightly up on one side, like she wanted to laugh. But her tone was serious. Everything about her was just full of contradictions.

"See ya later then," I turned swiftly and waved half-heartedly over my shoulder. If she said bye, I hadn't heard it.

I trekked back towards my own car and was in the process of backing out of my parking space when I heard a car horn beep. I instinctively slammed on the brakes and automatically thought that I had missed a car driving by. When no car drove by despite my peering into the rearview mirror after a couple seconds, I slowly continued backing out.

I saw the car horn culprit after I had backed out of my space completely. Holly. She sat there in her car, grinning at me. She waved exaggeratedly, and I couldn't tell if she was just enthusiastic about waving or if she was doing so just to annoy me.

This girl was really starting to get on my nerves, but I couldn't tell if I was annoyed because she was a pest, or if it was because she was just a straight up weirdo. My friends were weird, but they were nothing like Holly. At least not when we first met. But Holly had jumped straight into it. Wasn't it usually an unspoken rule that when you first met somebody _not_ to show them your true self? Weren't you supposed to be annoyingly polite? I was an exception to the rule, of course. But I thought everybody else had followed that rule to a T.

Apparently not.

I started driving out of the parking lot and on a whim, stuck my hand out the car window and flipped her off, just for the hell of it.

She honked again and with both our car windows down, her laughter came travelling in and the sound went whirling around my ears.

Then the strangest thing happened. She drove behind me the entire way home. The entire 7 minute drive. Turn by turn. Light by light. I kept glancing in the rearview mirror and I wondered why on earth she was following me. She was really carrying out this "annoy the hell out of your lab partner" task to its fullest extent.

Even when I turned onto our quiet neighborhood street, she followed. It wasn't until right before I passed the recently sold house that it hit me.

"No, no, no," I muttered to myself, peering at my mirror closely. She started slowing down and my suspicions were confirmed. Holly turned into the driveway of that exact house. Right before she turned, I saw her throw her head back and laugh and despite the fact that I was still somewhat far away, I swore...her laughter rang all around my ears.

In addition to being one of my classmates, Holly Stewart was also now my neighbor.

* * *

A/N: So...thoughts? Good? Terrible? Drop me a line if you want. Or let me know if there's anything you'd like to see happen too!


	2. Chapter 2

I collapsed on my bed and stared up into the ceiling. What a bizarre first day of school. I definitely hadn't met somebody like Holly before. And now on top of it all, it turned out she was only permanently a couple houses down the block from me.

I couldn't shake this feeling. It was a bizarre feeling—like somebody picked me up by my ankle and dangled me upside down and jingled me until everything in my pockets and in my brain had fallen out. It was unsettling, actually. But I couldn't put my finger on what exactly it was. And whether it was in a good way or bad way.

I hated feeling like this. I hated it when people put me out of my comfort zone. I hated it when they turned the books on me. When they flipped the script on me. I liked my script. I liked my books the way they are.

And it annoyed the hell out of me that it was still bugging me.

"Screw it," I muttered and flipped onto my side to take that nap that I had been looking forward to the entire day.

It felt like I had barely closed my eyes when my phone started buzzing incessantly. I grabbed it impatiently and answered with a "What?" without checking to see who it was.

"Whoa, somebody had a bad day," came Nick's voice through the phone.

"I was taking a nap. You interrupted," I told him succinctly, stifling a yawn.

"Oh got it. Sorry about that," he said, not sounding sorry at all. "You busy later? I'm done with practice and was thinking about swinging by your place. Is that cool?"

Finally he had gotten his senses together. This is the stuff you're supposed to do after you've been away for a long time. I needed some stability after the strangeness that was sixth period with Holly. We established to meet outside in 10 minutes. Apparently I had been sleeping longer than I thought because when I looked outside the sun was already starting to set.

I heard Nick's motorcycle coming up the street before he actually got to my house. Even though in general, I hated people who rode motorcycles because they were usually douchebags, I had to admit that Nick riding was actually...pretty attractive. And that bugged me. I couldn't explain why I thought that. Again, that same process I hated—thinking one way and hating that I thought that way.

When I opened the door, Nick had already parked his motorcycle on the driveway and dismounted. I saw him carefully place his helmet on the seat, treating it like a jewel. The bike was old, because it was the only thing that Nick had been able to afford at the time. But he took good care of it, and it was pretty much his greatest treasure. Asides from myself, of course.

I stood in the doorway, waiting for him to come in. But instead, he stood by his motorcycle and waved to me.

"Come on. Let's go for a walk," he called out, sticking his hands in his letterman jacket. Jocks and their jackets.

I made a face. "What do you mean a walk?"

"You know, the activity that involves using your legs? Normal humans use it to get to places from time to time. Come on."

I stuck my tongue out in protest but eventually gave in. I grabbed a jacket from the coat rack by the door and started down the driveway. Nick turned right when he reached the end of the driveway, but I pulled on his arm to go the other way.

"Uh, let's go this way," I said hastily. I did not feel like walking by a certain house down that side.

"Why?" Nick questioned, but turned to follow me.

"I like this side of the street better," I lied, without knowing exactly why I was lying to him.

We walked and Nick was silent. The street was silent. It was a little suffocating, honestly. I scrambled for words in my brain.

"Why are we walking?"

"Just felt like it. Did a lot of it over the summer. I think it's good for our minds. Helps to clear it and get some fresh air," Nick said as way of explanation.

When had he become such a nature person?

"I really missed you over the summer," he went on to say. "I really like you, you know that right?"

I turned to him, trying to read his expression. "Why are you...being weird?" I asked. As a couple, we had rarely expressed our feelings to each other on a mutual level. It was just kind of unspoken attraction. I didn't feel comfortable talking about stuff like that so it had been nice to find Nick because he didn't push me (not that much anyway) to do that couple-y stuff.

"I'm not," he protested. "I'm just saying. That's all."

"Hoooo-kay," I said, not believing him at all. And it was troubling. Maybe it was because we had spent so much time apart. Long distance relationships never worked, and on top of a long distance relationship, we hadn't even had the chance to talk at all.

We kept walking until we reached a park. I sat in the swings and swung while Nick walked around in the sand, kicking the sand into little piles. We talked a little bit about my internship over the summer. Real simple stuff. I didn't always need deep conversations about the meaning of life, but it would've been nice to talk about real stuff, especially after such a long period of time.

When it had become completely dark, Nick got a call from his dad, telling him to come for dinner. Ever since his parents got divorced in the middle of last year, his dad kept a closer eye on Nick. And Nick felt bad, so he liked to stick around close to home. He rarely went out to those jock parties, and if he did, he always made sure to go home at a reasonable time. My parents on the other hand, never gave a damn. The only way I'd get their attention was if I actually got arrested. And until I actually became a full-fledged officer, I was basically another mouth to feed.

Nick went home and I resignedly started on the homework pile that the teachers had unceremoniously dumped on us. I could never focus on homework, but I was much more distracted than usual. The first day of senior year definitely hadn't been what I expected. I had thought it was be a brand new _good_ start, but instead, it had just been a strange day. Like I was in a parallel universe. Where Nick wasn't Nick. Where nerds weren't really nerds.

Maybe he just felt weird after disappearing for so long. Three months was a long time. But still, there was something off. I hoped it would just go away after a couple weeks of hanging out some more.

After basically scratching my eyeballs out to try to figure out my pre calculus assignment, I scribbled some work on it and called it a night. After all, senior year right? I couldn't bring myself to care too much.

I just wanted to get out of here. I didn't think about Nick. I didn't think about the distance that had seemingly grown between us. I didn't think about what would happen after we graduated. I couldn't bring myself to think about those things. I didn't want to.

* * *

At lunch the next day, Nick was fine. In fact, it turned out he had more stories from camp. Apparently he and Andy had taken some kids kayaking in the lake nearby the camp, but Andy's kayak ended up turning over because she hadn't steered it correctly. Luckily, none of the kids were hurt and they had all been wearing lifejackets, but it _had_ sounded like a funny scene.

"And then Andy kept trying to crawl back into the kayak and it kept flipping over," Nick exclaimed, while holding his stomach laughing.

Andy scowled. "Shut up Nick. You try keeping a bunch of kids calm while simultaneously trying to climb onto a kayak that's bobbing up and down from all the damn waves."

"Whatever," Nick cackled. "Admit it, it was hilarious."

Andy reached out to slap Nick in the back of the head. "No, what was hilarious was when your kids decided to dump that gallon of Gatorade all over you. You were drenched!"

"Nick's expression went from one of amusement to one of disgust. "Don't remind me. I was miserable and sticky for that entire day."

"I know," Andy said reminiscing, "Now that was great. And you couldn't even change because we had a hiking trip planned right after that softball game!"

I was just about to let out a remark about how the two of them should get a room or something when Dov butted in and interrupted the trip down memory lane for me.

"So did you guys hear about that new Halo game that's coming out?"

Not that that topic was anymore interesting, but it was definitely not as disturbing. I know I chose not to go to the summer counseling thing. But now I was half regretting it. Not that I would ever voluntarily watch kids scream and run around—but because it had meant missing out on time with Nick. Three months had been a long time.

When the bell for fifth period sounded, Dov and I walked slowly towards the locker rooms for our P.E. class. The two of us had so wisely left the P.E. requirement until senior year. It wasn't our fault. I hated physical activities and Dov was just a sickly pale white boy with asthma who well…didn't always fare so well when it came to sports.

"What was up with Nick and Andy?" Dov asked, giving me a pointed look.

"What about them?" I feigned ignorance. I didn't want to admit that I had been thinking the same thing. I hated coming off as a jealous girlfriend. I prided myself on not being an idiotic estrogen-filled bitch.

"Oh come on, don't tell me you didn't notice."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Dov."

We reached our separate locker rooms and I was left alone with my thoughts to change. Along with dozens of other girls, of course.

While the two junior girls next to me were talking about some stupid party that some senior jockhead had invited them to, I tried not to let the girl feelings come crawling in. I had to have faith in Nick. He liked me. He told me that. He just told me that yesterday!

Nothing happened.

I tugged my shirt off over my head and grabbed my P.E. uniform shirt.

Nothing happened.

We ran laps for the period. I tried to think about how much I hated running. How much I hated our P.E. teacher for making us do this.

But with each step that I took, it was the same four syllables that came back into my head.

Nothing happened.

I walked to sixth period. The same four syllables, only slower—to match my walking pace. The more I said it to myself, the more I believed it. Despite a few facts that may have pointed to the contrary.

I sat down next to Holly in a daze. She was already there of course. She probably ran from class to class in order to get there early ready to take notes.

Actually, I took that back. She was already sitting there writing in her notebook. She had her hair in a low ponytail today and for a tiny moment in time, I lamented at the fact that she'd restrained her hair. No hair toss to gape at today.

"What on earth are you writing anyway?" I shot at her. "The bell hasn't even rung yet."

"Stuff that I want to ask Mr. Anderson," she replied, again without looking up.

"What could you possibly have to ask that Anderson on the second day of class?" I asked, perplexed.

"Stuff that I read in the book last night."

"Somebody likes to be ahead of the curve, evidently."

"Better than being behind it, if you ask me."

And she had a good point. I just couldn't bring myself to care that much about school. I'd rather be in the curve. If that was a thing at all.

The bell rang to start class and Anderson immediately stood up from behind his desk to start his lecture. True to her word, Holly would raise her hand every now and then and interject with a question about the material at hand.

I had to hand it to her though, the questions she asked weren't stupid. In fact, if I were to be entirely truthful, her questions forced Anderson to be more clear about the facts at hand. If anything, they clarified the material for me. Usually when people asked questions in class, they were usually people who 1) hadn't been paying attention in the first place so they forced the teacher to repeat themselves or 2) just asked straight up idiotic questions. But Holly's enthusiasm for the subject was palpable. It was like she was itching to jump out of her seat and teach the damn class herself. It was endearing, in a way. I definitely would have preferred to learn from her than the nasal tenor in front of the class. Her voice was a lot more bearable.

After class, Holly somehow wrangled me into helping her carry her books again to her car.

I eyed the stack of books in my hands. Calculus, some honors Medieval Literature book, a German language book, among some other novels here and there.

"Why are you taking all these smartass classes anyway?" I called out to Holly, who was striding purposely in front of me again.

"Because I want to get the most out of my education while I can," she called back.

"And why do you have to bring all these books with you anyway? You know that the school provides lockers right?"

"I know that," she huffed as she tried to balance the books in one hand while grabbing her keys from her backpack. "But it's out of the way to the parking lot. So I bring them with me to class so that way I can just go home directly, you see?"

"Right. Home."

I didn't mention the fact that she was my new neighbor. It was like she had totally forgotten that she essentially followed me home yesterday.

"Yup," she said happily. She opened the car door for me, and I _carefully_ placed the books on her passenger seat this time.

"Happy?" I asked sarcastically.

"Much better," she complimented, reaching around me to scoot them around to her liking.

"Apparently not good enough," I muttered under my breath, more to myself than for her to hear.

"You'll get it in time," she replied anyway.

Despite the fact that I had already finished my task, I stood there, waiting for her, staring intently at her hair for some unknown reason. It looked good in a ponytail too, I surmised. I didn't know why I had such a fetish with her hair. Maybe because it was so different than my own? When she had finished piling her books carefully, she turned around and surveyed me curiously.

"What's up?" she questioned with a tilt of her head.

I hadn't expected her to call me out like that, so I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "You're weird."

Holly tilted her head the other way. "So are you," she said, her mouth tilting up on one side again.

"You're my neighbor," I then followed up that statement with another idiotic one. And immediately I wanted to smack myself in the head. But it was the elephant in the room (okay, parking lot) and it was bound to come out at some point in time anyway.

"I know," she confirmed. "I figured that's why I ended up following you home for the entire way."

"I thought you were stalking me."

"Oh please. I have better things to be doing than stalking you."

"Hey, to stalk me would be a privilege, okay?"

"Since when were you a celebrity?" she interrogated fiercely.

"I'm a Peck. I'm essentially a celebrity in this city thanks to the Superintendent of Police aka _my mother_," I told her. Maybe to say that we were a celebrity family would be pushing it. But I had already said it and it was out there.

Holly snorted. "Well if we're going by parents, then you could say I'm a celebrity too. My mother's a published author."

"Like a real author?" I said stupidly. The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.

She snorted again. "No, like a fake author with fake millions of readers."

"Screw you, the words slipped out of my mouth."

"Watch those words. They tend to get away from you," she mocked. She waved and walked around to get into her car.

"Hey," I heard myself saying, without being able to stop. "You wanna go grab a donut or something? I know a really good place nearby and I am suh-tarving."

Holly stopped in mid-motion in opening her car door. She propped her arm up on the roof of her car, giving me a strange look.

Taken aback by her open scrutinizing, I leaned back instinctively. "What?" I asked hesitatingly.

"Nothing. Just didn't take you for the initiator type, that's all," she explained, still peering curiously at me. "Hey, thanks for the invite. 'ppreciate it. But I've got to get home. I'm taking my mom to the airport."

"Fine." I turned myself around and stalked away. I had felt like an idiot staring at her already. Then I had advanced myself as more of an idiot when I asked her to hang out. And even more so when she rejected me. Now I was stomping away like I was some sort of dinosaur. But I couldn't help it.

It had been a shit day. And until that moment, I realized that I hadn't thought about the Nick _issue_ since the beginning of sixth period.

"Hey, Peck!" Holly's voice called out to me in the wind. Despite the fact that her rejection had struck me at my lowest point, I couldn't help but turn around. "Next time, yeah? I'm holding you to that donut invitation!"

Then she pulled a move that I had never been able to pull off in my life. She winked. And not with both eyes, like the way that it turns out whenever I tried it as a joke. It literally happened in the blink of an eye, but oh, I saw it.

* * *

Nick didn't call me later that day. In fact, he hadn't spoken to me at all. In the months before summer, we at least either hung out or spoke on the phone every evening. Or maybe a few texts. Never just...no contact. And as I went to sleep that night, I realized I had turned into exactly what I had hated.

It was ridiculous, I thought. Yesterday he had shown up proclaiming how he liked me a ton. Hot and cold.

The next morning, I woke up, less excited for school than I normally even was. I mean, school was an escape from home at the very least. But still now that it seemed like something fishy was going on—something about it just didn't sit right with me. The feeling that something was terribly wrong was still lingering from yesterday. And if anything, Nick's lack of contact yesterday made it even worse. Like something terrible was brewing in the pit of my very core.

I was driving out of the neighborhood, passing by Holly's house when I glanced over. Just out of curiosity, of course. To my surprise, I saw Holly's car in the driveway, with the hood propped open. Against my better wishes, which seemed to be happening a lot more often now, I pulled over to the curb and stepped out.

As I walked up the driveway, it became clear that Holly had her head ducked into the hood. I heard a couple swear words here and there as she muttered to herself. "Damn it. Get in there."

"Stewart, hey!"

Holly's head emerged from underneath the hood. Her hair was up in a bun now. But I assumed that that was because of the nature of her current activity.

"Oh, hey. What's up?" Oh god. She was actually wearing protective glasses..._over_ her regular glasses. She was no longer a four-eyed nerd. Six eyes anyone? I resisted the urge to point it out. And the urge to point out the smudge of black...whatever on her forehead.

I gestured to the car. "You tell me. Car problems?"

"Yeah," she rolled her eyes and dove into some long winded explanation. The only thing I caught was something about a clogged fuel filter.

I zoned out while she gestured to some part in her car and waited until she seemed like she had finished talking. "Your dad can't take you to school today?" I asked, peering curiously into the windows of the house. I knew her mother was away, but I wondered if her dad was around.

"Nah, he's already in the shop. He leaves pretty early in the mornings." Holly pulled out a rag from under the hood and wiped her hands on it. "I think I can get this though. Just a couple more minutes. Maybe."

I eyed the car. _It might take more than a couple minutes to try to fix this pile_. But I didn't mention anything out loud. And despite the fact that she had so terribly rejected me yesterday, I felt pretty bad for her predicament.

"You sure you got this? Seems pretty complicated."

"Hey, I'm a mechanic's daughter. I got this."

"Whatever man," I said, tossing aside the fact that her father was a mechanic. And a published author for a mother? Could there be a stranger couple? "You're gonna be late if you keep this up. I'll take you. It'll be my favor to you for today. I'll expect a couple homework answers later though, of course."

"So does the ride this morning cancel out the favor of toting my books after school then?"

"Oh yeah. You're all on your own then. I'll take you home but good luck on getting to the car."

Holly tossed the rag in my face in response. "Give me a sec. Let me just grab my books and we're good to go."

I laughed inwardly. Oh yes, totally good to go. Especially with that smudge on her forehead. Good stuff.

We left her stranded car as it was and drove to school. Holly made some snide remark about how nice my car was and how nice it must be. I elected to ignore it because...well it was true. And it was true that on the outside, the Peck children may seem like they were spoiled. But really, it was the least the family could do for us, considering the fact that our careers had been planned since we were in the womb. It was seriously the least they could do.

But I didn't feel attacked from the way she said it. When Chris or Dov or any of the others ever mentioned something about my lifestyle, I always felt like it was resentment. But when it was coming from Holly...it felt okay. I knew she was joking. It was easy with her.

I finally clued her in on the smudge on her face and after a brief punch to my shoulder, she carefully wiped it off. We headed off towards our separate classes, barely making the warning bell. Left to myself and my thoughts again, I realized that that unsettling feeling had come back. Which led me to realize that it had left. For a short period of time, nonetheless, but it had left. It must have been because I was distracted, I told myself. Holly wasn't connected to the others. She wasn't connected to Nick…or Andy. Talking to Dov yesterday had given me a completely different feeling. And it was because he had witnessed the same interactions I had. But Holly hadn't.

And despite however quirky she was and snarky—I was glad to have at least that small, if not miniscule, bit of respite. Because that terrible feeling in my stomach told me things were only about to get worse.

* * *

A/N: When I first started writing that first fic, I found it hard sometimes to get words out and was worried that chapters were too short. But now it's like I have to restrain myself from going on and on. I don't know how that happened, you guys. Welp, hope all is looking good so far!


	3. Chapter 3

"Hey you wanna hang out after school?" Andy whispered during class. We were supposed to be working on some free-write assignment (an assignment designed to just keep us busy, if you ask me) but she obviously wasn't writing. I guess I wasn't either.

I glanced up to make sure the teacher hadn't noticed. Nope, she was still sitting at her desk, undoubtedly doing her own business. Probably working on writing her own book. God knew she never stopped talking to us about it.

"Don't you have practice?" I whispered out of the side of my mouth. Andy had been on the varsity volleyball team since her sophomore year, a sports star—not unlike Nick.

"It's okay, it won't kill me to miss a practice," came her answer.

Her answer set off alarm bells in my head. Nick had already set off a couple in the last few days. He had rarely called me and if he did, his conversation always sounded forced. But Andy's statement...well, it wasn't consistent with the past.

Andy hated missing practices.

I always tried to get her to ditch, to come grab a donut with me instead. But she always insisted on working on her spike or her serve, or whatever other kinds of hits there were in volleyball.

"I don't know, I've got a lot of homework," I replied, trying not to give away my mistrust.

Andy shoved me so I nearly fell off my seat and snorted softly. "Since when did you start taking homework seriously?"

I sniffed righteously and rearranged the papers on my desk. "Since I would like to go to college and not be a bum for the rest of my life."

"Come on," she said, prodding me with a pencil. "Just for a bit. We haven't hung out since I've gotten back."

_Yeah, there's a reason for that_. But I finally agreed. I couldn't fathom why I agreed. Why I would willingly put myself into a situation that was looking more and more like it wouldn't turn out well for me. Maybe because I wanted to observe the other side of the situation. I hadn't been able to get anything out of Nick. Anytime I asked him why he was being weird he completely denied the situation. Hangouts were tense.

And besides, maybe it would all turn out to be nothing. Maybe Nick was just being weird. And Andy had nothing to do with it. Too many maybe's. Maybe that was why I agreed.

We walked to the donut shop nearby to pick up snacks and drinks after school and then headed to the skatepark next to school. Neither of us skated, but we somehow just always defaulted to hanging around there watching the skater boys. Besides, some of them were pretty attractive, in like a grungy sort of manner. Not that neither of us would ever go for them. They were just nice to look at, is all.

It was nice. It wasn't awkward, actually. It felt like old times. She asked me how the internship had panned out. It was nice to catch up with her, because we hadn't had the chance since school started last week. But then Andy said something that made my ears perk up.

"We're friends, right?" We were sitting on the stone bench near the bowl when Andy suddenly blurted out the question in the midst of a conversation lull.

I glanced over in her direction. She had been staring at me but then suddenly whipped her head away to look at a skater jumping out.

"Yeah…" I said slowly with a very pregnant pause at the end. "Unless something changed without me knowing," I added. I didn't know what I meant by that. I just said it without thinking.

Andy jumped up off the bench and turned to stand in front of me. "Nope. I would never break up with you. We've been friends for too long."

I waved her aside.

"Gail, I'm serious. I'm trying to tell you something."

"I know. You're in the way. That one's pretty cute and I can't see him." I craned my neck around Andy's silhouette in time to see said skater pull an impressive trick and gain massive air.

"Oh."

She sat back down and again, a lull in the conversation. Then all of a sudden, a tightening sensation around my waist and a blow to the shoulder.

"What the hell?" I sputtered. Andy had suddenly lunged and enveloped me in a giant sideways awkward hug.

She buried her head in my shoulder, disregarding my obvious discomfort. "It was hard not being able to see you all summer, you know. No hanging out at skate parks. No slushies. I missed that."

"Okay…" I said hesitatingly. Since she seemed like she wasn't going to pull away anytime soon, I patted her gingerly on the arm around my waist. I wasn't a hugger. I made obvious exceptions for Nick. But I hated unnecessary physical contact. And Andy should have known that. We'd been friends for "too long" as she put it.

"I guess you and Nick just both missed me too much."

Andy nodded against my shoulder in response and finally let go. We continued watching the skaters jump and do tricks (and fall) for a minute longer. Until the question that was buried deep within me clawed its way out.

"Was everything okay with Nick at camp? He's been acting weird."

Andy grabbed her slushie off the bench, eagerly I might mention, and slurped loudly. And then slurped some more.

I waited, not knowing what I was expecting.

Finally, she swallowed. And then gulped again. "Yeah, I mean...I think he missed you a lot though."

"Good. He should have. Who leaves like that for the whole summer?"

"I know, right?" Andy's voice was a little higher than normal as she nodded eagerly. "What a jerk."

"You left too," I reminded her.

"Yeah, but duh, we're not in a relationship," she immediately choked on her words. "I mean, you and me. In that way, you know?"

Warning sign again. I couldn't bring myself to say anything more. It was like she was tip-toeing around me, almost. Why had she felt the need to clarify who was in the relationship? Fuck, I was being that stupid bitchy girl. I was _that_ girl.

I excused myself so I could go home and do some homework. I couldn't just float through senior year, of course. I didn't say anything in reciprocation to Andy's outburst. There wasn't anything to say to that. I just had no idea what to make of the situation.

If there was a situation at all.

I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to prod Andy. I didn't want to prod Nick. And despite the fact that I kept asking Nick what was wrong, some part of me wondered if I really wanted to know. I was scared of what I was going to find out. It was like playing Minesweeper. You kept clicking but you would always be hesitant of clicking on that one bomb that would set everything off.

* * *

It took two weeks, but I think the bomb was finally set to go off. Nick pulled me aside at lunch to ask me to meet him after practice. It had been the first time he had initiated hanging out with me since that very first day of school. He kept fidgeting and avoiding my eyes as he insisted on me meeting him. I asked him why he couldn't just come over after practice, but he gave me some excuse about having to get home and only having a few minutes of free time. So I finally consented, against my better wishes and against my brain screaming no at me.

I don't know why I agreed to Nick. I don't know why I agreed to Andy's hangout previously. But ever since that one time, she hadn't asked again. We still talked during class and during lunch, but she definitely hadn't been as weird as Nick.

Fifth period was torture, even more so than usual because the clearly overweight P.E. teacher kept yelling at me "to hustle". Please. He couldn't hustle even if his life depended on it. I always wondered why they sent the fat ones to teach P.E. Didn't it just seem altogether hypocritical as they sat in their golf carts, driving around while the entire class is about to collapse from running? I picked up my pace slightly around the track, but not by much. Dov, on the other hand, was trying to sprint his way through the run but ended up having to pull out his inhaler halfway through.

I sat down in sixth period, propped my chin in my hands and stared at the clock, willing it to pass quickly so school would be over. Or even better, just to skip the rest of the day. Sometimes I wished I could just skip to the next day so I didn't have to put up with...well, life. It wasn't until Anderson announced that there would be an exam at the end of the week that I finally snapped to attention.

I hissed at Holly sitting next to me. "Wait, like a test?"

Holly scribbled madly away in her calendar. I saw that she wrote the words EXAM in big block letters in the Friday column. "Yes. A test," she whispered back, as Anderson continued his speech about studying and getting off on the right foot.

"Fuck me," I muttered under my breath and put my head to the desk.

"You wish."

I barely heard Holly's reply. Damn it. Now on top of everything, I had to study for a biology test? The rest of my classes were somewhat manageable, but biology was the one subject that got me.

I couldn't do this. I felt like I was going to fall apart at the seams. And Nick hadn't even said anything to me yet. But I could see it. You can just sense these things coming, I think, from miles away. I kept my head down for another couple minutes, unable to find the strength to look up or even pretend like I was paying attention in class. That is, until Holly jabbed me in the side with her elbow.

"Ow!" I popped my head up to glare at her. "What was that for?" I seethed.

She didn't say anything, but instead nodded her head towards the front of the class. It was only then that I noticed that Anderson had stopped talking and was looking straight at me. Oops.

"Is there a problem, Ms. Peck? This is not kindergarten. We do not take naps during classtime. Understood?"

"Yes," I grumbled.

Satisfied, Anderson turned back to board to continue drawing some diagram of I don't even know what. I spent the rest of the period _not_ with my head down, lest he call me out again. But I definitely had no idea what was going on. It was going to take a miracle for me to pass this class, probably. Maybe a miracle called Holly.

When the bell finally rang, I walked Holly to her car with her books, as had become routine. I didn't really mind the detour. Besides, it had turned out that Holly knew quite a lot—not just about biology. Sometimes she would go off into complete tangents about other subjects. And besides, sometimes she was able to clarify certain things that I hadn't understood in class. Anderson had a special way of over-complicating material that didn't need to be convoluted, surprisingly enough.

"Are you okay?" Holly asked, after we had loaded the books into her car.

"Yeah," I said, looking at the ground and kicking one of her car's tires absentmindedly. As old and beatup as the car was, she still took care of it. The wheels weren't terribly dirty, like mine got very often. The body was as clean as you could make it and it was obvious that she had taken the time to clean up any scrapes and scratches.

"You sure? Is it that test we've got coming up? I can help you if you want. I could come over to your house. Or you could come over to mine. Whichever works best for you. Or we could meet somewhere else. Like the library?"

"I'm fine."

Holly leaned against the hood of her car like she had all the time in the world and squinted at me through her glasses. I avoided her gaze and instead stared at somewhere over her head. For a moment, I felt like I was in a therapy session and she was about to take notes. "You sure?"

After she uttered that statement, for a tiny moment in time as I finally locked eyes with her, I almost wanted to tell her. I almost wanted to just blurt everything out—to break the dam and let everything come rushing out. She wanted to know. She wasn't pushy, she was unassuming, and she was unbiased and gentle. By this time I would've guessed we were more than just classmates (besides neighbors) because I saw her outside of class after school. She helped me on in-class assignments when we had to partner up to complete worksheets.

But in the next moment, I realized that we weren't _really_ friends. And Pecks didn't share their feelings.

I waved her off, making an excuse of not feeling well. She offered to drive me home if that was the case. But I told her I was going to wait for Nick. Which was true, in a sense. Holly finally relented and drove home, leaving me behind in the parking lot.

I guess I could have gone home. It was only a 15 minute round trip. But I didn't see the difference between staying on campus alone or going home to an empty house. At least school was an open field instead of a large jail cell of a home. But I didn't know how I would spend the next two hours. There was a spot on campus where they had multiple picnic tables, so I just picked one and sat there, alternating between playing with my phone and attempting to study for that damn test. I willed the time to pass by quickly.

But then Nick texted me that he was done with practice and suddenly, I willed for the time to slow down, a thought quite contrary to my earlier wishes. I found him at the outside basketball courts, doing some layups. He had already changed out of his uniform, which was a good thing—I tended to be a little distracted when he was in that outfit.

I walked up and leaned against the basketball pole, watching as he attempted to make a three-pointer. He missed. He was usually good about hitting those. I dropped my backpack and grabbed the ball before it bounced past me as Nick finally approached me.

"Hey," I said. I bounced the ball beneath my hand, needing to keep my hands busy. "How was practice?"

He shrugged and shook his head. "Crap."

I bounced the ball and walked around on the court, following the paths of the court lines. I waited for him to say something. This was after all, his idea.

"Listen…" he finally broke the silence. "I don't think we can do this anymore."

As soon as he said the words, it was like my whole body was doused in an ice bath. I thought I had seen it coming. But expecting something and seeing that same thing happen was never the same.

I swallowed and continued bouncing the ball. "Why?" I couldn't look up at him. So instead, I watched the ball bouncing on the court—it was almost hypnotic.

He didn't answer me. But finally I looked up at him. And it was written all over his face. That guilt. That pity. Like I was some poor abandoned puppy he had picked up and followed him home. And that he now wanted to kick out of his house. I hated it.

I stopped the ball and wrapped my arms around it against my stomach. "It's Andy. Isn't it?" I had to know. If this was going to happen—if this bomb was going to explode, I wanted the whole blast. I didn't want to just be maimed or crippled. I wanted to be completely blown away.

Nick let out a frustrated breath and turned away from me. He grabbed his hair and walked in circles before he was able to answer. The seconds ticked by. "It's just...it was hard being away from you. You know? And Andy was right there. We were there together and things just happened. They got out of control."

Now I felt the whole explosion. That gut wrenching feeling that had finally become truth. On impulse, I heaved the basketball at his head. I missed. I never had great hand-eye coordination.

"Fuck you."

It was the only statement I could manage. I grabbed the backpack I had dropped by the pole and stalked away. He didn't even try to follow me. At least, I hadn't heard him calling my name or running after me. I couldn't decide if I wanted him to or not. I think part of me wanted him to—so I could see whether I had meant anything at all to him. The other part of me didn't want him to. I was afraid I'd punch him.

I drove home recklessly in a half state of anguish and another half of numbness, surprised that I made it home so quickly. It was a miracle that I didn't get pulled over by one of my mother's many lackeys. They probably would have let me off anyway.

The house was empty. Again. As usual. I was pretty sure my parents only came home to sleep. But this time it's so much more lonely. Maybe it was the fact that right now, right here...I quite literally had nobody to depend on. Nobody to really confide in. I sat down cross-legged in my bedroom in front of my floor-length mirror. I sat there and I stared at my reflection. I wondered what was so wrong with me that Nick would essentially cheat on me. I don't even know if he _really_ cheated. I didn't know what "out of control" meant. Did he sleep with her? Did they kiss?

But it was all over. I guess it didn't matter what they had done. It was clear that Nick had moved on from our relationship regardless. It was betrayal in its rawest form. It had all been done behind my back. And the two of them had the nerve to act like we were all friends.

No.

We weren't one happy trio. This wasn't some kind of Harry Potter shit. But as much as I had known this was coming, as much as I had the sense of foreboding, nothing could have prepared me for this. It still attacked me where I was weakest.

I thought I had felt something real for Nick. He was the first person that I let in, in possibly my entire lifetime. I hadn't thought that I would have ever found somebody to let in that close. Especially given the way that I had grown up seeing my parents' relationship, I didn't expect to get much out of relationships.

I decided that maybe those relationships, the ones that you see in books, the ones that you see in movies where people are lovey-dovey and are always thinking about each other—maybe it's not such a thing after all. Maybe friends weren't really worth having, either. Really close friends. Maybe I wasn't meant to have close relationships with others.

It was best, I concluded, to keep things to myself. As I had for the past years before I met Nick. If you didn't let your feelings out, nobody could hurt them, nobody could take advantage of them. It was best to depend on no one. To trust no one. As it turned out, even trusting your friends and significant other could turn around to bite you. So I sat there on the ground in front of the mirror, and for the first time since I could remember—I let myself cry it out silently.

* * *

A/N: I may have jinxed myself from the last A/N. Personal stuff got in the way you guys. It took awhile to process some recent news I got and I think this is what I could chug out at this point. I don't think I could manage anymore out of this chapter. Thank you all for your reviews/favorites/follows, I really appreciate each and every one of them.


	4. Chapter 4

I skipped school the next day. I couldn't find the energy to get up. To face the world. It was easy to skip school. I just called my mother at work to tell her that I wasn't feeling well and she made a quick call to the school office. She was too busy and didn't care enough to confirm that I was really sick. I was lucky in that way, I suppose.

I spent the entire school day in bed, only getting up to go downstairs to get some cheese puffs to eat them in bed. Cheese puffs were my ultimate comfort food. Donuts were a close second though. I refused to let the tears inside escape. I had already indulged in those last night. No more of that today and from now on. Every now and then I would glance at my phone to check the time. At least that's what I told myself. I guess in reality, I was checking to see if anybody would check on me. Namely, Nick. But I received no messages from him. Nor from Andy.

But if Andy knew me at all, she would know that the last thing I wanted right now was to talk to her. Or if she knew about anything about friendships and relationships in general, she would know that.

I hid under the covers and wished that I was far away from this city, from this place. I resolved to start my college applications the next day. And to only apply to schools far far away from here. Where nobody could find me. Where I could start over.

I didn't mean to be a drama queen, but I was feeling more and more like this world as I knew it had ended around me. Screw Nick and screw Andy. They can go live in their happily-ever-after by themselves. As I live in my world by myself.

Sometime around lunchtime, I was woken up by a text from Dov asking where I was. I ignored his text, but was glad that at least somebody had noticed and cared to ask. It felt petty of me, but it was good to know that I at least had Dov, even if we weren't the best of friends.

The next thing that woke me up was the house's doorbell ringing. I grumbled and checked my phone again. It was 3pm—the middle of the day. Who would possibly be ringing our doorbell at this time? Courier? FedEx? I was way too lazy to get whatever package or talk to whoever was at the door so I pulled my blanket over my head and ignored it.

But then the doorbell rang again. And this time it was followed by a knock. I groaned aloud. This was either one very overeager mailman or an overeager solicitor.

I stayed still under the covers for a couple seconds. I thought the person had given up. But then—a whole barrage of doorbell rings. It was like the person was jamming their finger into the doorbell continuously. That was crossing the line for me. I flung the blanket off me, in a very foul mood and stomped downstairs, grumbling and swearing the whole way. I was going to give whoever was so insistent on getting me to come answer the door a huge piece of my mind.

And they would regret it. They would not want a piece of my mind in the state it was currently in. It was all sorts of messed up.

I flung open the door, ready to give whoever was standing there the hugest lecture of their life, but to my shock, it was neither a mailman nor a solicitor. No, it was my classmate, lab partner, and neighbor.

"Holly?" I asked flabbergasted.

She gave me a very thorough once-over. It was almost like an x-ray passing through me. "You don't…_look_ sick."

I sniffed exaggeratedly. "I'm not feeling well." I threw in a hoarse cough at the end to prove my point.

"And that's enough to skip school? When you know very well that there is a very important upcoming biology exam?"

"Whatever. Who cares about that stuff anyway?"

"I do. Are you gonna ask me in or what?"

It was then that I noticed that Holly was carrying a stack of books and papers. "Depends...what is that?"

"Stuff that you need," she replied haughtily, adjusting her grips on the stack. "Now let me in, so I can drop this load."

I stepped aside so she could come in through the doorway. "How do you know what I need?"

"Oh, I know."

Without even waiting for me to direct her, Holly found her way to the living room and dropped the stack on the coffee table with a thud.

"You're not sick." She turned to me and looked me up and down once more. "Why did you skip school?"

"Because I felt like it." I plopped myself on the couch and spread my arms out to get comfortable. There was no need to spill my guts to her, a near stranger. Just because she had barged her way into my home didn't earn her the right to anything.

"You do look like shit though."

"Wow, thanks."

"Anytime," she said, waving a hand absentmindedly. "You missed a lot in class. You're screwed for the test."

I scowled. The last thing I needed was a wannabe mother figure. "I know. You don't have to remind me."

"Well clearly I have to, because you're not doing anything about it."

"Why does it matter to you anyway? It's not like my grade will affect yours." I grabbed a couch cushion and hugged it under my chin, playing with its fringes. I've always hated these frilly pillows, and yet my mother insisted that they added a sense of elegance to the room. It just made our couch look like it belonged in an 1800's Victorian house if you asked me.

"We had a deal, remember? I think it's about time for me to pay you back. So let's get started already."

Holly sat herself down on the couch across from me and picked up the biology book. She proceeded to give me an exact play-by-play of the material that Anderson had gone over in class. She also pulled out her notebook at some point to show me her notes but it was obvious that she didn't need them. She could've gone over the entire material with her eyes blindfolded.

I was envious of the way the scientific facts just rolled off her tongue. It was something that I would never be able to do. But as fascinating as her abilities were, nothing could have kept my concentration today. Rationally, I knew that I should take advantage of Holly's gesture. I knew that my future would depend in part (however miniscule) on this exam. But I still couldn't get over yesterday's events. All her impressive facts went in one ear and out the other; either that or they just straight up whizzed over my head completely.

Holly finally called me out on it after 15 minutes after she had started her lecture. I guess my staring off into space kind of gave the whole game away. That and my occasional sigh and head flop onto the couch back.

"What is up with you anyway?" Holly threw her notebook back on the table exasperatedly. "It's like you're not even trying!"

I ignored her accusation. "Do you think people are malicious by choice?" I wondered out loud before fidgeting with the pillow fringes some more. It was a question that had been bothering me. I wondered if Nick and Andy had purposely done this to hurt me. I wondered if they had even considered me in their love equation. Or was I an accidental consequence? But how could I be an accidental consequence if I had essentially been an entire half of the ruined relationship?

Holly's eyebrows wrinkled as she tried to understand my question. "What? Have you been listening at all?"

I ignored her question again. "It just makes me wonder. How is it that we can trust anybody at all?"

Holly threw her pencil down on the table too before leaning back into the couch. She surveyed me closely before crossing her arms and legs.

"...what?" I asked apprehensively. "It was just a question."

She took a leaf out of my book and ignored my question. Instead, she seemed to decide something in her head and jumped up off the couch.

"Come on, let's go."

I glanced up at her warily, refusing to budge an inch. "Where are we going?"

"You're clearly not vested in studying for your test. So let's go and do something else productive," Holly replied. She reached over to grab my arm and tugged it. Hard.

I yelped. "Hey, that hurts!"

"If you got up on your own then I wouldn't have to hurt you. Come on, let's _go_."

I reluctantly got off the couch, resenting it as soon as my ass left the cushion. I couldn't figure out for the life of me why I was going along with her plans. But as long as it meant that I didn't have to sit there and listen to more biology lectures, I guess it couldn't be much worse than that.

"Where are we going? What about studying?" I whined one more time before following her out the door.

"I told you. I know what you need," she threw back. Scowling, I locked the door and followed her, waiting for my fate to unfold.

* * *

"You're kidding," I remarked scathingly. I couldn't believe Holly had dragged me here. As a second thought, I couldn't believe I had let her either.

We were at the batting cages. Like with actual bats and baseball. We stood outside the cages watching other people take their turns swinging, some of them missing completely and looking like idiots. Which was what I was going to look like. I hated looking like an idiot. Nick already made me look like the biggest, most oblivious idiot on the planet and now Holly was going to do the same to me.

"Oh don't be a baby. I'll go first. It'll be fun."

Holly donned the batting helmet that the front desk had handed us and stepped into our designated cage. She stepped right up to the plate with no hesitation whatsoever. Her stance looked legit, like she had already done it hundreds of times before. I stepped closer out of curiosity and grabbed onto the fence in front of me while watching as she prepared herself.

Then the next thing I knew, I saw Holly swinging the bat, a giant "thwack" and the ball sailing straight to the other end of the cage. I had a slight suspicion that if we weren't in a cage, that hit would have been a homerun. It was slightly intimidating, actually. I hadn't taken Holly Stewart to be a homerun slugger. Damn.

She turned around beaming to me, obviously quite proud of her hit. "Your turn," she exclaimed, pulling off her helmet and gesturing for me to come into the cage.

"I don't..._do_ sports," I huffed. But I entered the cage anyway. I don't know, maybe I thought the idea of swinging a bat (which could totally double as swinging a weapon) and whacking something would make me feel better.

Holly handed me the bat and helmet, grinning the entire time. You would've thought that she had just gotten the highest A of her life from her expression and demeanor. It was a little endearing. "Oh come on," she said excitedly. "It's cathartic. And if you ask me, it's quite obvious you're in need of some catharsis."

I placed the helmet on and gingerly took hold of the bat. It was a lot heavier than I expected. But it felt wieldy and when I lifted it up to test a couple practice swings, it felt good.

"Ready?" Holly asked.

"Wait, wait wait," I said hastily, hastening over to the plate. Once I was in position, I heard Holly punch the button to set off that ball.

I thought I had it. I thought I was ready. But the one thing I hadn't counted on was the ball speeding so fast. And seemingly straight at my head. So I did what any normal level-headed person would have done. I flung the bat and ran for cover. It dropped with a huge clatter, quite a different sound than the one Holly made when she actually hit the ball. I ducked and scurried off to the side, closing my eyes and putting my hands over my helmeted head.

A huge burst of laughter came from behind the fence. My first gut reaction was to be utterly embarrassed and angry. But then I realized Holly's laughter wasn't malicious in nature. No, it sounded like it was just good old-fashioned amusement. And once I was sure that the whizzing ball had passed and no more were coming out, I couldn't help but join in.

I looked up from my cover and put on a scowling face just for the sake of my dignity. But upon seeing Holly's bursts of laughter and seeing her almost bent double holding her stomach from laughing, I lost it.

"I told you, I don't do sports! I'm leaving!" I stalked out of the cage in mock anger and walked right past Holly who was still laughing her head off.

"Wait, you're giving up already? Damn, didn't take you for a wuss."

Oh, that was it. Challenge accepted. I whipped around and glared at Holly, still clutching her stomach. "Not even close. Bring it, Stewart."

I set myself up at the plate again, instructing Holly to push the button when I was sure I was ready. I made sure to keep my eye on that machine that was shooting out the balls. I gripped the bat tight and bent down low in the same way I saw pros do it on TV. But as soon as I heard the machine release the ball, I immediately flinched and swung wildly. I missed, of course. I couldn't help flinching; it was just a natural reaction.

"Damn it," I swore and kicked the base in frustration. Holly had made it seem so easy.

"Well...at least you didn't throw the bat this time."

I turned around and glared at her. She grinned back. "Improvement. Baby steps, right?"

"Right," I agreed, resolving to hit the ball the next time. I missed again. I think it was because I kept flinching and half closing my eyes.

Holly finally gave in to give me some tips. Standing inside the cage with me, she coached me on the proper stance.

"First of all, you're standing too crouched," she explained matter-of-factly. "Nobody stands that low."

"Nuh-uh, this is how the pros do it."

"I'm pretty sure you're exaggerating their position. Just straighten it up a little, c'mon."

Next thing she corrected was my grip on the bat. Apparently it was too tight.

"You gotta relax. It's not a weapon."

_It could be used as one_, I thought. But I complied with her instructions.

"Third. Stop flinching, goddammit. It's just a ball!"

"Yeah, a ball that's coming straight at my head," I retorted.

"Doesn't matter," she said, shaking her head. "You gotta attack it straight on. If you're going to do this, if you're going to allow a speeding ball to come towards you, you gotta go straight for it. If you let it dictate its action, of course it's just going to run you over. You gotta take it head on."

"I feel like this is some kind of life lesson," I muttered, absent-mindedly swinging the bat back and forth.

"Maybe it is," Holly remarked. She stood by that damn button, hand hovering over it. "Ready?"

"Fine."

The machine promptly released the baseball. Again, my reaction was to move out of the way, duck and cover. But then in that split second I decided that I was going to attack it straight back. That ball came straight for me, but I saw it. I really saw it and so I swung when I thought it was just about right.

It hit the tip of my bat and went straight up into the net. I scurried out of the way so that when gravity played its role, I didn't find myself with a giant bruise on the head.

Holly clapped and whooped joyfully from outside the cages. "You did it!"

I had done it. Even if it hadn't gone anywhere, I at least made contact. That gave me the motivation to keep going. It was strange; it had been a long time since I resolved to work towards a real goal. Maybe hitting a baseball wasn't _really_ a goal. But it was something that I wanted to do right. I couldn't remember the last time I wanted to do something right.

So I kept at it. After awhile, I finally started to make real contact with the ball. When I thought I had had enough, I let Holly back in the cage. She was a real damn slugger, let me tell you. It was impressive the way she kind of destroyed my initial stereotype of her as a nerd.

After an hour or so, Holly declared that she was hungry and was going to go get some snacks. She left me in the cage to finish up a couple last swings. She instructed me to come find her when I was done.

"Yes, mom," I replied sarcastically.

I hit every last ball. Even if they weren't as strong or as direct as Holly's hits, I was proud of the accomplishment I had made. Again...it had been awhile. It felt good to get the energy out, too. Holly had been right. She did know what I needed, even if she didn't know about the situation.

I found Holly sitting in the rest area, where they had laid out some picnic tables for eating. She had multiple hot dogs, nachos, and drinks laid out in front of her. It was like we had the same stomach.

"Nice," I murmured in approval. "Good choices."

She laughed and spread her arms out. "I know, right?"

I took a seat across from her and grabbed a hot dog eagerly. This junk food was definitely the best. A girl couldn't ask for more. Well, I would've preferred if my boyfriend hadn't cheated on me with my closest girl friend.

Fuck.

And just like that, my mind had jumped back to the shit storm that had become my life.

"What's wrong?"

"Huh?" I looked up from all the food that had been so gloriously laid out in front of me. Holly had placed the hot dog she was evidently about to cram into her mouth and glanced at me curiously.

"Your facial expression changed suddenly."

"Don't know what you're talking about," I muttered, reaching for the nachos. To my surprise, Holly reached out and pulled them away from me.

"You're ridiculous, you know. I can see it. Just spit it out."

"Don't want to talk about it."

"So you admit there is something that is bothering you."

Damn. She got me.

"Look. I'm not a therapist. I don't know you that well, but just...you know, I guess I'm here if you need anything else. Outside of school stuff. A deal is a deal. You help me, I help you."

If I were to be truthful with myself, I think she had been helping me a lot more than I had been helping her. The only thing that I had done so far was help her carry her books. And give her a ride to school once.

After a moment of contemplation and chewing, I finally decided to say something. "Boys suck." It was the most I could say without really talking about it.

Holly scoffed and finally pushed the nachos back towards me. "Couldn't agree more."

"What makes you say that?" I wondered if she had had a bad relationship in the past too.

She shrugged.

"Bad experience?"

"Not really," she replied thoughtfully. "But what makes you say something like that so suddenly?"

"Because it's true," I answered.

"But there has to be a reason."

"You could say that."

"And?" Holly prompted. Normally if anybody else had pushed me like this, I would've walked away long ago. But despite the fact that Holly kept asking, instead of feeling pushed or annoyed, it made me realize that she was curious...but not for her own sake. I got the feeling that she actually did care.

"My boyfriend cheated on me with my friend," I blurted out.

Holly stopped mid-nacho and stared at me.

"Yeah."

She let out a low whistle and crammed the rest of the nachos into her mouth. Clearly a junk food enthusiast.

"Damn."

"Yeah."

Holly pursed her lips. It looked like she wanted to say something more. Or ask more questions. But instead, to my surprise, she got up out of her seat and dusted herself off.

"Hey, where are you going?"

"You need more therapy. Let's go for another round."

I stared at her serious expression. She looked like she was suggesting we go to war. Her face was grim, jaw was set.

"Okay," I agreed, almost wanting to crack up at her demeanor. But I kept a serious face to match hers.

We collected the remnants of the food to take with us and started walking back towards our cage. As we made our way, Holly made one more remark.

"I know a way to get you to hit the ball better. Put his face on that ball and whack the crap out of it."

I nodded resolutely. That sounded good, actually. Really good.

* * *

A/N: Leave a thought if you so wish :) Oh, also. I'm sorry if anything about the batting cages is inaccurate...I've never been D: I should get my own Holly to take me...


	5. Chapter 5

When I went back to school the next day, I dreaded each and every class I had with Andy. I purposely lagged and arrived at each class at the last minute so that most of the seats were already full. This left me with no other choice except to take a seat that was nowhere near Andy and behind her. Which worked out perfectly for me.

I saw her look around in each class for me, but each time, I ducked my head down and pretended to be on working on something. It was immature, but I didn't care. As soon as class was over, I all but ran out before anybody else had even finished packing up.

It was amazing that I even got to lunchtime without having a single interaction with Andy. But then at lunch, I headed towards our usual lunch spot. I thought that Nick would have more decency than to show up. But as I turned the corner, I saw him sitting there with Chris and Dov, chatting like nothing had happened.

It was the same lunchtime scene that I've seen for months. That was our spot, underneath that one tree that never seemed to have leaves. On that grassy hill where sometimes wayward couples would make their way over and proceed to make out disgustingly and roll everywhere. We had nicknamed it the baby-making hill. There was already some couple over on the other side of the hill canoodling.

Everything was the same. But nothing was the same.

This didn't make sense. He was the one who broke up with _me._ Why should I suffer through this? Why didn't he just remove himself from the equation?

Nick stopped mid-sentence as he locked his eyes with me over Dov's head. I stood there, unable to do anything else. My brain ceased to function. I froze in place, feeling like my feet were glued to the ground. I hadn't imagined that he would be there. I really thought I wouldn't have to see him. But there he was.

I stood there, and yesterday's events flashed in my head on repeat until my brain finally kicked into its emergency energy. I abruptly turned on the spot and headed in the opposite direction. I had no idea where I was going. But I kept walking.

"Gail! Hey!" A voice called out to me—not Nick's. No, that was Dov behind me.

I turned my head around, but continued on my escape route to nowhere. Dov was running after me, his bangs blowing hilariously in the wind. He slowed down to a walk when he was next to me.

"Where you going?" he asked, slightly out of breath. Like I said, he wasn't the greatest athlete.

"Somewhere else," I replied succinctly.

"But why?" Dov pushed. "Did something happen? First, you skip school even though you were fine the day before and now you're just not going to sit with us? Are you mad at us or something?"

I scoffed and quickened my pace. Was I mad at them? Dov had no clue what was going on. "Don't worry about it, Dov."

"C'mon. Don't be ridiculous. Just come back with me."

I ignored him and kept walking. Far away. That was the only destination I had in mind. I only stopped when I felt Dov's hand on my arm, grabbing me. He came to a standstill, forcing me to do the same.

"Dov, let _go_." I wrenched my arm out of his grasp. "Just leave me alone. Go back to them."

I saw Dov's face. His expression. A mixture of confusion. Anger.

Dov and I had never been the closest friends, but we had never had a disagreement. He had always understood that I needed my distance. He had never pushed me too far. Until now. Somewhere inside, I knew that he had no idea what was going on. That whatever was going on was not his fault. But he kept pushing. So I snapped, even though I had never snapped at Dov in my life. I had never had a reason to.

So I turned and kept walking. The only response I had at the moment. Turn and leave. They say the body responds in one of three ways to a stressful situation-fight, flight, or freeze. I think in the last minute I managed to respond in all three ways.

This time, Dov didn't follow me. I could feel his shock and disbelief in my wake. But I didn't care. Maybe it was a matter of self-preservation. I didn't want to put myself in a situation where I was basically the butt of the joke.

So I found myself spending the lunch period in the library with the other rejects of the school. Since the library didn't allow food, I had to skip eating. I didn't feel much of an appetite anyway. I spent some time trying to review the biology material that Holly had tried to go over with me yesterday. But my attention was shot. Without somebody hovering around me, forcing me to go over the material, I found that I had no motivation to do so.

Fifth period was a tense period. Dov, having already been rejected by me previously, was careful to avoid further conflict with me. I felt bad for pushing him away. He had been the only one who tried to reach out. It wasn't his fault for not knowing what was going I couldn't find it within me to approach him and apologize. That conversation would have to wait for another day.

I sat down in sixth period in my stupid assigned seat next to Holly's empty seat. She tended to arrive somewhat later because she stopped by her locker before coming to class. I put my head down against the cool table. I had almost fallen asleep when I felt a sharp jab in my side.

Knowing who it was, I reached out with my arm and slapped whatever or whomever was in reach.

"Hey!"

"You hit me first," I muttered to an indignant Holly, who was settling into her seat.

"Yeah, because we all know what happened the last time Anderson caught you like that," she retorted.

"The bell hasn't even rung yet," I protested.

"It will soon. I was just giving you fair warning," Holly replied, already pulling out her notebook and pens. She always pulled out one blue and one black pen. Sometimes a highlighter too. Definitely an overachiever. She called it "being prepared". I called it being obsessive.

The second after she finished her sentence, the bell rang—proving her point. She gave me a knowing smirk and I rolled my eyes in response.

Classtime was excruciating. Anderson lectured on and on about the exam tomorrow, wavering in between lecturing us on the material and warning us to study. Try as I might, especially after Holly gave me a disapproving look because I hadn't even unzipped my backpack, I couldn't make sense of anything that he was saying. A confusing class on top of a confusing teacher did not equal a studious Gail Peck.

Scratch that. A confusing class on top of a confusing teacher on top of a cheating ex-boyfriend did not equal a studious Gail Peck.

I scribbled some notes here and there in an half-hearted attempt, especially after Holly's many not-so-subtle throat clearing and dirty looks. But I knew the notes I scribbled were essentially useless and that I wouldn't look at them anyway. I'd probably end up combing through the book later that night.

When the bell finally rang and Anderson gave us one last warning about studying, I waited impatiently for Holly to finish gathering her things. She always insisted on taking notes down to the very last millisecond and as a result, was almost always one of the last people out the door. We made our way to the parking lot, with me carrying half of her books as always.

"You okay?" Holly asked after we had put everything away. She had been silent on the way to her car, but it seemed like her curiosity got the better of her.

"Yeah, I guess. Okay as I can be in the situation." I shuffled around, simultaneously wanting to leave but wanting to talk to another human being. Distracted, I realized that my stomach was also starting to protest my skipping lunch.

"Which is not very okay," Holly replied softly. I shrugged in response. There was nothing else to say so I started to leave for my own car.

"You wanna go get those donuts now? You promised that they were good, right?" Holly called out.

She did always know what I needed. The second best comfort food.

"Yeah, sure. Let's just walk over."

We walked to the donut shop, which only took a couple minutes. It didn't look like much from the outside and I could tell Holly was starting to doubt how good this place was.

As we approached the shop, she eyed the sign and the shoddy walls and half-working signs. "Is it as good as it looks?" she asked hesitatingly. "You're not trying to poison me or anything, are you?"

"Way better than it looks," I assured her as I pulled open the door for her. The pastry smell hit me in a rush and my mood lifted an infinitesimal amount. It was a definitely a hole-in-the-wall kind of place, but those who knew about it always agreed that it was the best. High school kids either didn't know about it or thought it was too trashy to hang out at.

"If you say so," she muttered in reply because the owner, Mr. Buckner came out from the back in response to the door chime ringing. The shop was empty, as it often was by the afternoon. The only time it ever got crazy in here was during the early morning rush. For some reason, not as many people wanted donuts in the afternoon, which was crazy if you asked me. Donuts are good at any time of any day.

"Gail, hey!"

"Hi, Mr. Buckner," I said in greeting.

He leaned against the counter; it was obvious he was tired from the day. But he nonetheless smiled politely at Holly. "Hi there," he said.

"Hi. I'm Holly," she introduced herself, reaching out to shake his hand across the counter. Mr. Buckner chuckled and brushed his hand off on his apron.

"Well, as long as you don't mind some pastry gunk on your hand, I'll shake your hand."

Holly laughed and shook his hand anyway. "That's good stuff, are you kidding me?"

"Definitely," Mr. Buckner joined her laughter. "That's why I do what I do. Now what can I do for you two?"

"Well, Gail kept talking about how great your place is. We're here to confirm her statement," Holly explained in a very scientific manner. I repressed the urge to roll my eyes.

"Oh, a test huh?" Mr. Buckner, apparently undeterred by Holly's straightforwardness, gestured towards the display counter. "Well, we don't have too much left over right now. But I can guarantee that it's still pretty good."

Holly eventually settled on a bear claw. Both Mr. Buckner and I approved of her choice. As for myself, I went with the classic jelly donut. When I pulled out my wallet to try to pay for the donuts since Holly had paid for the snacks last time, Mr. Buckner waved his hands in refusal.

"No way. You're introducing a new customer and bringing me business. This one's on me. I probably would've ended up throwing those away anyway."

We took a seat at one of the several tables inside the shop to enjoy the pastries. It was a strange feeling, sitting down at the shop that I've been to countless times alone but this time with Holly. I felt like I had just led her straight to my treasure chest.

"Waiting for Nick to finish practice again?" Mr. Buckner called out to me as he was wiping down the counter.

I froze mid-bite. His question had caught me off-guard. Though in reality, his question made sense. I had spent a lot of time at the shop killing time the past school year, waiting for Nick. I locked eyes with Holly who looked sympathetic, but couldn't do anything.

"No," I finally managed to utter, "We, uh, we broke up."

Mr. Buckner threw down his rag on the counter and looked up from what he had been doing. "Oh, no. I'm sorry Gail. Are you okay?"

I shrugged. "We'll see." I didn't know if I would be either.

Mr. Buckner made a sympathetic face. "I'm sorry," he repeated. "Breakups are hard. Only time heals those wounds."

Holly nodded in agreement. "Time does wonders. That and hitting stuff."

"Definitely," Mr. Buckner laughed. "Take it from me. I've been through a couple of those. Just gotta grit your teeth and wait for time to do its thing."

The two of them seemed to be on the same page on this aspect. But neither of them were in my shoes. Neither of them were feeling the same pain I was. They couldn't understand. They couldn't even _begin_ to understand this feeling of betrayal that I was feeling. But I hoped they were right. I hoped that time would heal. But right now, I felt like it would take another ten million years before I would be able to look either Nick or Andy in the eyes without wanting to clunk their heads together.

We ate our pastries and Holly helped me to clarify some of the biology material from class. The donut helped the headache that came whenever academics came into the picture. Mr. Buckner went and did his own thing in the back room of the donut shop. I imagine that he didn't want to feel like he was eavesdropping. Normally he would stay in the front and clean up while talking to me if I wasn't studying (or attempting to study).

When we finished, we stood up collectively to leave. Then from out of nowhere, Mr. Buckner came running out from behind the counter with a giant pink box. He shoved it into my hands.

"Wha—?"

Mr. Buckner patted the box fondly. "Hitting things _and_ donuts. That and time will help you. Right, Holly?"

Holly nodded vigorously. "The best combination of therapy."

I thanked Mr. Buckner, touched that he would try to make me feel better in his own way. Maybe all people weren't as horrible as Nick and Andy.

We walked back to the school in silence as the wind blew around us. The street was pretty much deserted since most people left campus as soon as possible if they didn't have to stay after for sports practice. The air was chilly and had a tiny bite with it—a hint of a reminder that fall was here.

I pulled up my jacket zipper, shoving my chin into the collar. I hadn't dressed warmly enough and against my better wishes, I unconsciously had a flashback to after school hangouts with Nick, when he would always give up his letterman jacket to drape around me. I always insisted that I didn't need it, but he would always shove it on me anyway. Well, no more of that.

I'd have to remember to wear thicker jackets. And for another split second, I wondered if Nick would give Andy his jacket and a tiny bolt of anger resonated within me, all the way to my toes.

When we reached Holly's car first, I kept walking and was ready to say bye when I heard her take a breath, like she was about to say something.

"You gonna be okay?" she called out.

I didn't know why it was at that moment—but it was that moment nonetheless that I felt all of a sudden so very defensive. Maybe it was the tone of her voice. Maybe it was the way she kept asking. Maybe it was because of that strong reminder that Nick wasn't around to give me that damned jacket anymore.

I felt like I was being babysat by Holly. I hated the feeling of being coddled.

I didn't need anybody to coddle me.

I didn't need anybody to keep caring for me.

Nobody did anyway, why would Holly suddenly be any different?

"I'm fine," I said succinctly. I hadn't meant my tone to come out so harsh. But as soon as the words left my mouth, I could tell that they were harsh—they were cold. I could tell because Holly's face twitched a tiny bit—and not in that way when she found something amusing. It was almost like a defensive twitch. Not unlike the way Dov reacted earlier during lunch.

"You need me to study with you?"

I felt suffocated. Suddenly her caring words just felt like intrusive.

"No. I don't need to be watched over."

I just wanted to leave. I just wanted to be alone. I didn't need anybody to keep checking up on me. It made me feel weak. Weakness wasn't an acceptable feeling right now. I needed to be strong on my own. So I turned and I walked away. I didn't need this.

I had only gotten a couple feet away when her voice popped up from behind me. "Here. I made a copy for you."

I found a stack of papers flung on top of my donut box from around me and by the time I turned around, Holly had already turned her back on me and was at her car. She didn't wait for my reply; she simply just got into her car and drove off without waiting for me. It was rather fast, actually—it was impressive how quickly she had scampered away.

It wasn't until I looked down at the stack of papers that I felt slightly sick. Holly had made me a photocopy of all her class notes from biology. It was all neatly labeled, color-coded and everything.

Damn it.

* * *

I spent the night studying, looking over Holly's notes. They were impeccable. Even better than the textbook because she broke the material down piece by piece. I didn't even bother to crack open the book. She had organized it all into stuff that would be on the test as according to Anderson. Her notes were simple but informative—I had no idea how she managed to turn long-winded lectures from Anderson and giant blocks of paragraphs and diagrams into something I could somewhat understand.

The more I read Holly's notes, the more terrible I felt for the way I had treated her. But I didn't need to be babysat by her or checked up on by her, or anybody else for that matter. I didn't need that from anybody. I didn't need a Superman to save me.

But at the same time, I felt like shit because I had pushed away the one of the only people who _might_ give a damn about me. She was maybe one of the only people I had right now that I could've counted on—and I barely knew her. I didn't even have her number. Just her address and that was only because we were neighbors.

I didn't know what to think. And I didn't know why I felt so bad about treating her like that but my interaction with Dov wasn't nearly as guilt-tripping me. So I did the only thing I did when I couldn't figure out something—I shoved it to the back of my mind.

When I walked into last period the next day, I sat down and immediately pulled out her notes just to review some more. I was so engrossed in studying that I didn't even notice Holly had sat down next to me until the bell rang and I snapped my head back in a shock.

I didn't even have a chance to talk to her though, because Anderson immediately started shushing us and handing out tests.

To my surprise, I knew the answers to most of the questions. Some of the questions I couldn't answer as in depth as I wanted to, but I knew that I knew at least the basic answers. For others that I didn't know, it was only because I couldn't remember. I knew I had gone over the material, but since most of my studying was last minute cramming, it hadn't converted into my long-term memory. I was pissed, but I knew it wouldn't affect my score by much.

We had the whole period to finish the test, but I managed to finish with a couple minutes to spare. People who finished just had to sit there and wait for the bell to ring. I couldn't wait for college when I could just walk out after I finished a test. High school bell systems sucked.

When the bell finally rang, Holly was still working on the test. I was tempted to leave. I really was. But it would be too bitchy of a move. Especially since Holly might've just helped me ace that test—well maybe not ace, but at least get a fairly decent grade. So I sat there and I waited. Anderson demanded for all the tests to be handed in, so Holly reluctantly got up from her seat and walked towards the front, eyes still scanning her test paper until the last millisecond. Typical, but I knew she was just being thorough like the top student she was.

When she came back to collect her stuff, she gave me a weird look. "What're you doing?" she asked as she packed her pencils and pens away.

"Waiting for you." I thought it would've been clear from my sitting, but evidently she was still pissed about my rebuff yesterday.

"I don't need you to wait for me," she told me, as she swung her backpack on her shoulder, reaching for her stack of books as normal.

I scrambled out of my seat and grabbed the top half of the stack. "We have a deal. And I keep my ends of deals."

She didn't say anything but just walked out the door with the rest of her books. I took that to mean that she was okay with me carrying her books. After all, who could refuse free physical labor, right? On top of that, I wanted a chance to apologize, or try to fix the situation. I didn't want to screw up the one thing that might be going right in my life.

"I'm sorry," I finally blurted out when we finally reached her car. "I just…I don't like needing people."

"What's wrong with needing people?" she asked bitingly as she unlocked her doors.

"Nothing. For other people. I just don't like it."

"Look," Holly explained as she grabbed her books from me. "I can't say that I know what you're going through right now. I never really had a _real_ relationship, so I have no idea what it's like to have an ex. Especially an ex who cheated. But the one thing I do know is that people could always use a friend."

"I guess," I shrugged noncommittally. In the back of my mind, I registered the fact that she had never had a relationship. But I thought she had had a relationship at least once before because she had agreed with my statement how boys sucked.

"And honestly, I could use a friend too. It's not easy being new, okay?" Holly slammed her passenger car door a little harder than she normally did and that fact didn't escape my attention. She turned to face me; her eyes were hard and her expression was one that I hadn't seen on her yet.

I was taken aback by her revelation. She always seemed so put-together that I didn't think that being the new kid on campus bothered her.

"Okay then." I stuck out my hand to her.

"What's that for?"

"Friends?"

"Why do we have to shake on it?" Holly asked suspiciously, crossing her arms across her chest.

"To make it official? Deal is a deal right? You're there for me and I'll be…me." I was beginning to feel like a fool with my hand stuck out.

Holly threw her head back and laughed to the sky and it struck me that she was a loud laugher. And it amazed me how quickly she was able to shake off the earlier tension. It was very much the exact opposite of how I dealt with things. But her laughter made it seem like things might be okay. That there was maybe still some happiness left in the world.

"Do you make these kinds of deals with all your friends?" she asked.

"Well, I figured our whole friendship kind of started on a deal. So it makes sense to cement it with another one, right?"

"I think I'm getting the short end of the stick here…" Holly said thoughtfully as she nonetheless stuck out her hand slowly. Her face twitched again, but it was a different twitch—amusement, like she wanted to smile.

"I think I am," I complained as I shook her hand firmly. "Your books are damn heavy. I'm going to end up pulling a muscle soon."

"Hey, I think I'm doing you a favor. You can think of it as building up some muscle on those skinny noodles you call arms."

* * *

A/N: Okay that was a bit long. But I couldn't find a good place to just cut it. Leave a line to let me know what you think! See you guys soooon. Thank you all for your comments and reviews and favorites and follows and all that good stuff.


	6. Chapter 6

"Gail!" My mother hollered at me from downstairs. "Gail!"

God, she sounded like a giant parrot.

"What?" I yelled back through my closed door.

"Come down!" It was amazing; her voice seemed to pierce straight through my door.

With a frustrated sigh, I pushed my seat back from the computer, away from the college applications that I had started. I clumped down the stairs to find my mother in the kitchen making a pot of tea.

"What?" I demanded. "I was working on stuff."

She didn't even turn around. "My boss is coming over to make a house call and he's bringing his son with him. You two should get to know each other."

I made a disgusted face behind her back. Ever since I let it slip to my mother that Nick and I had broken up, she had been on this one-woman mission to find me a future husband, despite the fact that I hadn't even graduated high school. Oblivious to my disgust, she continued on about my apparent new suitor.

"He just graduated from university last year and he seems a lovely young man. Nothing like Nick." She reached for our cupboards and pulled out several mugs.

It annoyed the hell out of me that she felt the need to compare this nameless guy to Nick. She had always looked down on Nick because he had come from a broken family, and his family wasn't as well-to-do as we were. To her, Nick didn't deserve me. I guess it had turned out that she was right, but in a _much_ different way than she had thought. Besides this guy was _old_. Just graduated university? That meant he was at least 22 or even 23.

"I'm not interested," I told her shortly. "I got my own stuff to do."

"Well, whatever _stuff_ is, it can wait. I think it's time that you got back out there, Gail. You don't want to be stuck in this rut forever."

"Got back out where exactly, Mom?" I leaned against the counter and stared at her back, willing for it to turn around.

"Out into the dating world, dear," she said distractedly as she scoured around for snacks to lay out for our apparent guests.

"I don't want to. I would prefer to stay in the world that I'm in right now."

"Don't be silly. He's a perfectly mature put-together young man. From what I hear from his father, he's quite a catch."

"If he's such a catch, why is he still single then?" I muttered.

"Don't mumble under your breath," my mother snapped. "Now help me set out the good china plates."

I rolled my eyes so hard I could've sworn they were going to stay backwards in their sockets. I set the coffee table in the living room unwillingly. She would undoubtedly give me more shit if I refrained from following her instructions. And I was in no mood to receive more of that. My life had enough shit in it.

Once I had set up the table following my mother's _precise_ instructions, she berated me about my clothing choices.

"For heaven's sake, go change out of those sweats. Those are hardly inappropriate. You don't want to scare off this young man before he even gets to know you."

I stomped up the stairs to go change, chewing on the inside of my lip to stop myself from blurting out another retort that would undoubtedly just bring more misery upon myself. This _young man_ was going to be scared off anyway in the end probably.

I was mid-changing with one leg in my jeans when my mother hollered from downstairs again.

"Gail! They're here. I can see them pulling up the driveway. Hurry up!"

_My god_. She was the one who told me to go change in the first place! I threw the sweatpants into the hamper and finished pulling on the jeans, hopping on one leg like an idiot. You'd think my mother would have told me about such an important visit a couple days beforehand. But she had been barely home during this week; I suppose that might've been part of the reason it slipped her mind.

I froze mid-hop as the situation hit me. Or maybe she knew I would've run for the hills if she had told me the day and time beforehand. Damn it, I didn't even see that one coming. My mother—the most cunning one of the Peck family.

I had barely gotten halfway down the stairs when the doorbell rang. My mother came scurrying out of the kitchen, patting down her business suit to make sure there were no wrinkles. Not that there were any; she ironed everything constantly and kept her outfits and uniforms on their hangers at all times.

I went to go pull open the door when my mother hissed from behind me. "For goodness sakes, you couldn't choose something else besides jeans?"

"It was either this or sweatpants," I whispered viciously back.

Before she could say anything else, I wrenched the door open to find two men before me—complete opposites of each other. One was portly and on the verge of balding—this must be my mother's boss; it wasn't that he was necessarily _fat_. He was a big guy, no mistake, but it was obvious that he had gained some weight in his age. I wondered how he could be in the position that he was being in the shape that he was.

But I suppose once you got high enough up on the ladder, it didn't matter anymore.

The other one, my supposed knight-in-shining-armor, was actually pretty decent looking. Tall and with a head full of hair. He was dressed in a casual suit, making me feel suddenly very underdressed in my hoodie and jeans. But he grinned at me and stuck his hand out for me to shake.

"Hello, you must be Gail. I'm Weston."

Whoa. A very unexpected British accent came out of his mouth. Flabbergasted, I stuck out my hand and nodded dumbly.

"Gail dear, let our guests in," I heard my mother say as she reached around me to open the door wider. She reached around me to shake hands with the older man.

"Michael, good to see you. Thank you for visiting our home. Please come in." Her voice was now the exact opposite of what it had been when she hissed at me about my jeans. I suppressed the urge to make a face at her kiss-up voice. But I knew that that was how my mother got to be a white shirt in the police division.

"Not at all, Elaine," he replied in a gruff voice, stepping into the doorway. I was about to move to get out of his way when I realized that he had spoken in a perfect _non_-British accent. Huh? How could his son have a British accent but he had no accent whatsoever?

"Gail, aren't you going to step aside so they can come in?" My mother beamed a sickening smile at me.

"Of course," I muttered and moved out of the way. As the guests made their way into the living room, my mother stepped behind me and whispered in my ear, "What did I tell you about mumbling?"

"Where's Bill?" Michael asked.

"Oh, he had to work today. A last-minute call," my mother replied. Lucky for my dad that he didn't have to sit through this fiasco.

"You have a lovely home, Superintendent Peck," Weston observed as he made his way down the hallway. His British accent was completely absolutely throwing me off and I really wanted to ask why exactly he had an accent. Had he maybe grown up in England without his dad? But wouldn't that make their family a broken one and thus make my mother automatically reject them? None of it made sense.

"How nice of you. Thank you and please, call me Elaine," my mother replied as she gestured for the two men to sit down on the couch. "Let me check to see if the tea is ready. Gail, come help."

I dutifully followed her into the kitchen to serve our guests, though I saw no reason for my presence. But she was probably hesitant about leaving me alone in the same room with her boss. That and she was probably about to reprimand me on my behavior.

"Stop looking so dazed," my mother snapped back into the Peck mother voice. "I know Weston is a handsome young man, but you look like a starstruck fangirl."

That definitely slapped me back into reality. I didn't need Weston thinking that I had a crush on him already. He was definitely a looker and that accent _was_ kind of attractive on him—even if I had no idea where it came from. But I did not need another relationship right now. I had sworn off those for awhile. For the next ten years at least.

We chatted in the living room on couches facing each other. My mother regaled Weston and I with some not-so-hilarious stories about her and Michael's past. Then somehow the topic steered to my future.

Michael mentioned how he hoped that I would join my mother in the division one day. I managed a weak smile and nodded my head. I probably would, eventually. But it wasn't something that I wanted to think about now. But he started to give me all these tips about going into the force. It was starting to hurt my head when Weston cleared his throat.

"I think I would like to take a stroll outside. Gail, did you want to join me?"

I was about to say no thanks when I felt a nudge in my hip and glanced sideways at my mother. She pursed her lips and gave the slightest shake of her head.

"Suuuure," I drew out, giving her a pointed dirty look. She pretended not to notice and continued to sip at her tea and make conversation with her boss.

After we stepped outside onto the street, Weston promptly apologized for his dad. "I'm sorry about all that. He did the same thing to me until he realized that I was _not_ going to follow in his footsteps into the police force."

Feeling like Weston maybe wasn't so bad, I ventured to make conversation with him. "Oh, so what did you end up doing?"

"Well, I majored in English during university, and I'm hoping to get my master's in medieval literature."

I was about to ask him more about his schooling when I finally couldn't handle the issue of his accent.

"What accent is that?" I asked as we headed down the street towards the park.

"From Nottingham."

"What were you doing there?" I wondered if he had grown up there without his dad or something. Raised by a separated mother?

"I was there for a student exchange program as part of my major curriculum last year."

Hold the phone.

He was only there for one year?

"And before that?" I asked, feeling flabbergasted at Weston's character.

"I went to the local university twenty minutes from here actually. I grew up in the neighborhood around here. It's crazy we haven't met before today."

_Yeah_, I thought, _absolutely crazy_. Thank god we hadn't met before today. This guy was a complete fraud. What was my mother thinking setting me up with him? How had he picked up a British accent in the past year despite having grown up around here all his life?

I promptly lost interest in his conversation after that revelation despite Weston's rescuing me from my mother's grasps and his father's misguided guidance to help me join the police force. I couldn't think of a legitimate excuse to leave. Even if I could, I wouldn't be able to go home anyway; his father was still at our house. And my mother would give me hell for ditching him. I thought it was already bad enough, but then it actually got even worse.

"Actually, I didn't want to come to your house today," Weston continued as we finally reached the park, choosing to sit down at one of the picnic tables in the shade. "But then my father showed me a picture of you and that hooked me in."

I chose to remain standing and groaned internally. "Are you serious?" I could not believe that my mother had showed a picture of me to some random stranger. She was practically pimping me out.

"It was a very flattering photograph," he rushed to assure me, as if that would make me feel better. I didn't respond and he must've felt the tension because he started talking about his experience in England—frequently using terms such as "flat" instead of apartment and "mates" instead of friends as if to prove to me his authenticity.

I stared around the playground willing somebody, hell anybody, to save me from this date or whatever the hell this was. But the only people around were some little kids playing on the swings and their moms standing idly by.

As he continued talking, completely oblivious to my discomfort, I noticed a girl running down the street towards the park. Quite a familiar figure, I realized. No...was it? I kept my eyes on the girl as she approached the park with long strides and her ponytail swaying in the wind.

Yes, it was Holly. My prayer was answered. She better rescue me out of this crisis. I waited until she had stepped onto the park field to wave at her; I did my best not to seem too eager.

"Who's that?" Weston asked, finally putting a halt to his long-winded biography.

"A friend," I replied.

Dressed in a tank top and shorts, I could see that Holly looked like a real runner—with the armband that held her music player and what looked like pretty expensive running shoes. She looked really fit, like she did this on a regular basis. It was the least clothed I've ever seen her, it was obvious that she was very in shape. I wasn't out of shape or anything, but I realized I was somewhat jealous of the way she looked in shorts. I could never pull that off. I shook myself out of my daze and realized Holly had slowed to a walk by our picnic table. She pulled out the headphones that was evidently blasting her jogging music.

"Hey," she smiled at me and Weston.

"Hello, I'm Weston," he promptly introduced himself, standing up with another pompous handshake.

Holly looked taken aback by his accent but shook his hand anyway. "Hi, I'm Holly," she replied cheerfully.

"Out for a run?" Weston prompted. "I did a bit of running myself in the past as well. Did a couple marathons while I was in England."

I made a face behind Weston's back and I saw Holly stifle a giggle behind her hand. She choked but managed to recover rather quickly. She looked at me with a questioning look and I gave her a pointed one in response. I needed to get out of this situation and racked my brains for a solution.

"Sounds like fun. Hopefully I'll do one of those someday," Holly smiled politely in reply. An awkward silence fell between the three of us.

In this time of despair and need, my brain finally came up with my escape route.

"Oh my god, Holly! I totally forgot. We have to do that group project for class. You know, the one with the uhm, cells?"

I gave her another look. I was taking a huge risk and I hoped to god that Holly would take the hint. Indeed, she totally read my mind and didn't even flinch at all to my hint.

"Oh shit, yeah. I can't believe I forgot. That's gonna take awhile. We should get started. Like right now." She even added an emphatic nod at the end of the sentence. Nice acting skills, I noted. I wanted to give her a high-five.

Weston looked at me in confusion. "I thought we were hanging out!" He looked a little hurt, but in an indignant manner.

"Sorry Weston," I replied, avoiding Holly's gaze because she looked like she was about to burst into laughter; if I looked at her I surely would and give the whole game away. "School first, you know? I gotta get those good grades."

Holly choked again and it was evident that she was about to lose it. "C'mon, we should get going," I told her, taking her by the arm and dragging her away from the park. She stumbled off balance from my tug before following me. We left Weston standing by the picnic table absolutely flabbergasted.

"Sorry!" I called back. "Maybe another time…or not," I added under my breath so only Holly could hear the last two words.

She stifled another giggle and I hushed her, afraid that Weston would still be able to hear us.

"Keep it together," I hissed.

"Sorry."

We walked all the way back to her house and Holly kept making sounds like she wanted to ask what the hell just happened, but I shushed her each time. I looked behind us sometime later and saw Weston making his way dejectedly back to my house.

It wasn't until that we got back to Holly's place and were safely inside that she finally blurted out without my interruption. "What the hell was that?"

"God," I groaned. "That was my mother's attempt at a set-up."

Holly made a face. "Really? With that guy? Why does your mother know a British guy?"

"Don't even get me started on that. His accent is completely bogus," I replied. I followed her into the kitchen where she offered me a bottled water. It wasn't until then that I realized that it was my first time being inside her house.

"Sounded pretty real to me," she said thoughtfully, reaching for her own water and taking a gulp.

"Don't even. He was born and raised here. He was only in England for a year."

Holly spat out her gulp of water in shock. Luckily I wasn't in the direct line of fire so it sprayed onto the kitchen counter instead.

"Exactly."

Holly laughed out loud at the ridiculousness. She laughed and she couldn't stop and it seemed like she didn't even try to stop. I had been somewhat upset at my mother's absurd endeavor to set me up with a fake British guy, but hearing Holly's laughter made me crack up too. The two of us stood in the kitchen laughing our heads off like a couple of hyenas.

I laughed until my stomach thought it was going to collapse. I clutched onto the counter for support. "And he kept talking about his flatmates and having tea and crumpets," I howled.

"Stop, stop," Holly pleaded, shaking her head. "My stomach."

It wasn't until somebody else entered the kitchen that we managed to compose ourselves.

"Well, well, what's the joke?" asked a woman who I assumed to be Holly's mother.

"You don't even want to know," Holly gasped. I nodded in agreement.

Holly's mother introduced herself to me as Mrs. Stewart. Holly introduced me subsequently as her classmate.

"And neighbor," I added myself.

"Oh really?" Holly's mom asked curiously. "You live around here?"

"Right down the street," I confirmed.

"How nice!" she exclaimed.

"Totally," I asserted. "Especially handy today."

Holly choked again and I gave her a threatening look. Her mom smiled politely, not understanding the joke. She excused herself to work and I realized that she must be writing. She hadn't really presented herself as the pretentious published jet-setting author that I had imagined. In fact, she had seemed like a very regular homely mom. A real mom, not one that would set you up with her boss's son.

"Good job coming up with that project about cells," Holly taunted when we had finally calmed down. "Out of all the biology material that you've learned so far, the best you could come up with was _cells_?"

I scowled. "I panicked okay? That was the first thing I thought of."

"Sure," Holly nodded solemnly. "So what now?"

"Robin Hood is probably still at our house. And my mother is probably going to be furious. You mind if I chill here for a bit?"

"I guess I don't really have a choice. I can't throw you out there again. But you cheated me out of my run today!"

"Whatever," I called out, leaving the kitchen to explore Holly's house. It was a nice place—not stuffy and Victorian like our house was. Pictures of Holly growing up were tacked everywhere. And not stuck-up family portraits that my parents made Steve and I take. Real pictures of real life—her as a toddler playing in a pile of leaves, her family on vacation by a lake, all sorts of real memories. Our house pictures told a story of a stuffy police family—which was exactly what we were.

"Cute, Stewart," I remarked.

"Oh hush," Holly snorted, obviously embarrassed. "It's not fair. I haven't seen any of your baby pictures."

"I doubt there are any," I said snidely. My parents weren't exactly the biggest fan of babies. In fact, I was sure that unlike most parents, they probably wished for Steve and I to grow up as fast as possible into adulthood. To them, children were nothing but mouths to feed.

We spent some time wandering her house and looking at all the pictures. After awhile though, Holly insisted that she needed to get her daily exercise in. I forbade her from running outside again and leaving me in the house so she proposed the alternate idea of table tennis.

Every time I hung out with Holly I realized that she was so ridiculously multi-talented that it was starting to make me feel a bit like a flailing jellyfish. She insisted that she was no professional at table tennis but the very first rally quickly turned that notion upside down.

Next to me, she was the world champion. She tried to teach me but I just couldn't manage to pick it up. Unlike the batting cages, I couldn't grasp the idea of a tiny paddle hitting a tiny ball. The batting cages were definitely way better and much more satisfying than table tennis.

Still, I had to admit that hanging out with Holly was a lot more fun than I had been expecting to have today. We had a good time laughing and ridiculing my lack of hand-eye coordination. I was so thankful that she had chosen that time to go running at the park today. When I estimated that enough time had passed, I finally headed home in a hell of a lot better mood than I had started the day with.

My mother came down on me in a bit of fury as soon as I opened the door. She was outraged that I had left Weston by himself.

"He had a fake British accent," I complained.

"Who cares? He's a nice boy! I gave him your number so he can call you for a follow up date."

"Oh come on, why'd you give him my number? And on top of that, why the hell would you give his father a picture of me?"

"He asked for your number. And very politely too. You should be glad that he's still willing to contact you considering the way you left him hanging." She very conveniently avoided my second question about the photograph.

"I had a project," I lied. "Don't you want me to get good grades?"

"Yes, but you could've chosen another time to work on that project! Plan better next time, Gail." She ended the conversation abruptly and left to her own room.

Christ. What a nightmare.

I headed upstairs in a completely sour mood. It was amazing how my mother managed to flip my state of mind in a few seconds. But I did not need a relationship pushed on me right now. No, that was the last thing I needed. Relationships were nothing but betrayal and pain in the end. It would be awhile before I would trust anybody to earn the right to my feelings.

Mr. Buckner and Holly were right. Time had made some of it a little more bearable. The wound was starting to heal. It wasn't bleeding openly; the surface had somewhat scabbed over. But the majority of the pain would still take awhile before I wouldn't be able to feel it stinging anymore.

A long while.

* * *

A/N: God, WHY is S5 of RB not until July? Now that is a long while. I was so looking forward to it in June at the latest...I am so sad. Group hug everybody! We can make it.


	7. Chapter 7

A tap on my shoulder during lunch at the library made me look behind me. Dov was standing there waiting expectantly. I pulled my headphones out of my ears.

"What?"

We hadn't talked since I snapped at him at lunch because we kept avoiding each other during PE. And since I had started a new pattern of stuffing some food down my mouth right when lunch started and spending the majority of the lunch period in the library, I hadn't seen him or Chris for awhile.

"We need to talk," Dov announced loudly. Several people sitting at the tables around us looked up out of curiosity and the librarian behind the counter immediately shushed him and gave us nasty looks.

"About what?" I whispered back even though I had a suspect feeling. It was easier than bringing up the topic. I was going to let him do that.

"You _know_ what," Dov whispered fiercely back. "Now come outside."

Since Dov had come all this way to find me (and speaking of which, how had he found me anyway?), I decided that I would at least try to see what he wanted to talk about. Besides, in the end, he still hadn't done anything wrong except try to care about me. I packed up my bag, but apparently it was still too loud for the librarian because she promptly shushed me again.

Okay, that had to be out of spite. "Alright alright, I'm going!" I hissed in her direction. She gave me an affronted look in response, but didn't say anything else. Who had elected her police chief of the quiet zone anyway? I wasn't even causing a ruckus.

Dov led me outside the library into the cloudiness of the afternoon day. Fall had really settled in quickly and winter was quickly on its way. The constant chill and gloom did nothing to cheer up my consistent damper mood. Dov started heading back towards our lunch spot and once I realized where he was taking me, I came to an abrupt halt.

"Dov, no. I'm not going back there."

Dov turned around just as abruptly. "Fine. Then you have to tell me what the hell is going on. You can't just disappear on us like that with no explanation."

_Us_. There was no _us_. Nick and Andy had broken that group up into tiny shards of glass pieces. Tiny shards of glass pieces that would cut you if you didn't tread carefully. And if Dov didn't tread carefully, he was going to cut himself too.

"Why don't you just ask Nick and Andy about it? Why me?"

"Because they won't tell me anything!" Dov threw his hands up in exasperation. "Every time I try to bring you up, they just look super awkward and give each other weird looks. Chris and I have no idea what the hell is going on so lunch just ends up being an awkward foursome."

"You can't seriously tell me you have _no_ clue what happened," I told him. I knew he must've at least suspected the events that led to the breakup. Dov wasn't an idiot, no matter how clueless he was sometimes.

Dov looked around uncomfortably and it was then that I realized we were still in the middle of the open quad plaza.

"C'mon," I said and beckoned him over to the side by the lockers. I leaned against it and waited for Dov to voice the suspicions that I knew he had.

"I guess…" Dov started off slowly. "I thought maybe…well maybe, you know…"

I rolled my eyes. "Just spit it out."

"I thought they might've hooked up or something. I mean they spent all that time together at that camp! And you said Nick didn't even call you or anything. It was just super sketchy to me but I can't believe they would actually do that to you…or did they?" Dov finished with a whisper.

I sighed. The cat was out of the bag at this point. No point in denying it anymore. "They did," I confirmed.

Dov scrunched up his face and shoved his hands into his pockets, rocking back and forth on his toes. "I'm sorry."

"Me too."

I didn't want to have this conversation anymore. It just reminded me of what had gone horribly wrong and how things would never be the same. I had already started down the path of moving on and getting over it. I didn't want to go back and revisit the past.

"Do you want me and Chris to hang out with you at lunch?"

"I don't want you guys to pick sides." _Pick mine_.

"Well, I don't want to hang out with them anyway. Let's find somewhere else to sit. Since when does Gail Peck hang out at the library anyway? I didn't even know you knew where it was."

I punched him in the arm but laughed. Dov was a good guy, really. I had to give him credit for coming to find me despite the fact that I had snapped at him so viciously. I felt like our group was going through a divorce; it was so stupid that we had to split up like this. It was childish, but at the same time I was secretly glad that Dov and Chris picked my side. Nick and Andy could have their own little happy world. They picked their side first. The rest of us just defaulted.

We decided to sit just where Dov and I had stopped to talk. He threw his backpack down by me and went to go get Chris. I wondered how that conversation had passed over with Nick and Andy. If anything, I would've guessed that they were glad that Chris and Dov had left them. But now they must've known that I spilled the beans on their dirty little secret. It served them right, in my opinion. You couldn't just screw somebody over the way they did and expect it to remain a secret.

When Chris joined us, he just gave me a head nod. We were friends, but not best friends. He was always a little awkward around me and I could never figure out why. I just thought maybe he was just more awkward around girls. In fact, he and Dov sort of just never really dated and just hung out with each other all the time. They were both into video games and I just figured they'd grow out of it later. Eventually. Maybe. But they were both good guys. In fact, I think Chris even wanted to be a cop when he got older. He had mentioned it a couple times, but each time I was so disinterested in the conversation that I think he just gave up talking about it with me.

That and I thought he was slightly disgruntled that I pretty much had my pathway to the police force paved with gold. When he had heard that I got that internship at the police office nearby, he acted even more weird than normal. I thought that he might've even applied for the same position, but the station was only accepting one intern at a time.

It was nice to spend lunch time with other people instead of just listening to music like I had been doing for the past week. I had thought a couple times about asking Holly where she sat at lunch. But whenever I did, I also thought against it because I was sure that she had already established her own lunch group by now. She probably spent her lunch period with some kind of informal science club anyway. And I would rather not spend my lunch hour listening to copious amounts of uninteresting biology material. I spent enough class time enduring through that.

But right now, I wasn't too particularly sure which scenario would've been worse, a science lunch period or a lunch period filled with video game talk. They had spent all of 15 minutes talking about games before Dov finally clued in to my silence and started asking me all these random questions—where I was applying to college, what I wanted to major in. It felt like I was being interrogated.

But he was trying, so I couldn't be upset at him.

When I finally sat down in sixth period, I realized with a jolt that Anderson said he would be passing back our exams today. I sat there with my head in my hands, muttering/half-wishing under my breath for a good grade until Holly sat down besides me with her usual giant thunk.

"What's up with you? We don't have a test today, if that's what you're worried about."

"I'm not worried about taking a test, I'm worried about the one we already took," I replied, massaging my temples. I couldn't fail this class.

"I gave you my notes didn't I? If you relied on those, you should've been fine."

"Yeah, but we don't all have that big brain of yours. I can't just commit all those facts to immediate memory like you can."

Holly scoffed shortly. "Please, I don't commit facts to immediate memory. I take the time to study and prepare as we learn the material, instead of cramming at the last minute like _other_ people."

I ignored what she was implying by her slight emphasis on the word other. "I had stuff going on, okay? I'll prepare better for the next one."

"If you say so," Holly said distractedly, tying her hair in a ponytail as she prepared for her daily note-taking.

Anderson had told us in the beginning of the year that he had a policy implemented about not passing tests back until the end of the period. It was an annoying policy, but I could see why he as a teacher would choose to implement it. Once people got their test grades back, they were either ecstatic and failed to pay attention in class for the rest of the period, or upset and also failed to pay attention in class, choosing instead to go through the test questions one by one, trying to recount their points.

So I had to spend that class period in agony until that prick finally decided he was done lecturing with less than two minutes remaining until the end of the day. He went down each table row, handing the graded tests back one by one. The class noise volume slowly increased as people started to discuss their grades. It seemed like the overall beginning general consensus was that it had been a hard test. I tapped my fingers impatiently on the lab table and Holly nudged me in the side to get me to stop.

The moment of truth—Anderson approached our table and placed mine before me before moving onto Holly.

"I can't look, I can't look," I muttered, covering my eyes.

"Oh god. Just look, would you?" Holly said impatiently. "It's not as bad as you think it is."

I looked over to her, making sure to cover my vision so I didn't see the test score from the corner of my eye. "You saw?"

"Well it's right there, Gail," Holly said, flipping through the pages of her own test. "Just look at it!"

"What did you get?" I demanded, still looking at her instead of my own test.

"An A," she said succinctly. Her tone...no, was it really?

"Oh my god, are you actually upset over an A?" I exclaimed incredulously, with my own test-score still waiting for my review.

"No, I'm not upset," Holly explained matter-of-factly. "I just felt like I could've done better."

"What could possibly be better than an A?"

"An A+," Holly replied promptly. "Now will you please just look at your own test?"

I groaned and reached blindly for the test still waiting in front of me. I covered my eyes with one hand and held up the test to my face with the other.

"Okay, okay, you can do this," I whispered to myself. "Just look."

"Yes, just look and put all of us out of our misery."

I ignored her sarcasm and finally peeked through my fingers. "No way! A B+?" I removed my hand and started flipping through the pages in disbelief. I couldn't remember the last time I scored so high on a science test. I had consistently hovered in between the B and C line, even sometimes hopping dangerously close to the D area.

"I told you. Not as bad as you thought it was," Holly laughed and gave me a pat on the back. "Good job, Peck."

"I suppose you deserve some credit," I said with a grin on my face.

"Yes, I do."

"Way to be humble."

"I handed you the key to unlocking your inner-potential. I'll take my credit when it's due. But in the end, it was still your brain that did most of the work. So kudos to you."

"Well thanks, I guess," I said reluctantly just as the bell rang. A sense of accomplishment spread through me and I felt better than I had for awhile, especially after that somewhat awkward lunch period. It felt good to get a good grade. Maybe it would push me to do better in the future too. And not just in high school, in college and beyond! Maybe I was a nerd at heart.

"Any time," Holly replied, packing up her stuff. "C'mon, let's get going."

I grabbed my half of the books dutifully, still keeping my test on top of the stack. I couldn't stop looking at it. Each time I looked at the giant red B+ with a circle around it, I grinned even wider.

I followed Holly out the door. "I did good, right?"

"Yeah you did. I knew you weren't as dumb as you let on," she teased.

I was about to protest when I heard somebody call my name. "Gail!"

I froze in my tracks and my mind went blank as I registered the voice in my head. Andy.

Holly stopped too when she heard my name being called. We both turned at the same time to see Andy leaning with her back against the wall outside our classroom door. She shoved off the wall with one foot and approached me cautiously.

I shifted around, looking for an escape route but finding none except blatantly running away. I almost considered just turning around and walking away, but some part of me...it either wouldn't let me move, or wanted to see what Andy had to say.

"What are you doing here?" I asked her flatly as she came to a stop a couple feet from me.

"I just came to see...if you were okay," Andy explained nervously. She rubbed her hands together and looked almost more uncomfortable than me.

"Peachy."

"So...you're okay with me and Nick then? We...have your blessing?" Andy asked.

From behind me, I heard Holly cough lightly. "I'm just gonna go first, Gail," she whispered.

I whipped around. "No. This isn't gonna take long."

Holly looked the most uncomfortable out of the three of us. But I didn't want her to leave. I didn't know why; I just knew that I wanted her to stay here. I needed her to. She was a solid presence in this complete shit storm and I needed something to hold onto.

I turned around back to Andy, who was still standing there fidgeting. _Blessing?_ Who did she think she's kidding? I hadn't wanted to reveal my true feelings but with Andy having the nerve to come up to me and ask me this made me change my mind.

"My blessing?" I repeated harshly. My voice threatened to crack, and I willed it not to do so. "No, you don't—you don't have my blessing."

Damn it, it cracked. The anguish turned into rage.

"You broke the code. You're not supposed to date a friend's ex," I said viciously. "You're _never_ supposed to date a friend's ex. That's what's so great about it. That's your punishment."

"What?" Andy looked disheveled and confused all at the same time. She had no idea where I was going.

"You. You are the bad guy. You, Miss Perfect-Never-Hurt-A-Fly McNally, are the bad guy. Look at it. It's just killing you."

It was. I could tell just by looking at her. Our whole friendship Andy had tried to be a good person. And I had whole-heartedly believed that she was a good person the whole time. She helped me out whenever she could during class, cheered me up with Nick and I got into whatever fights, and had just been overall a pretty damn good friend. Until this last summer. But now, she looked so uncomfortable in her own skin, it looked she wanted to crawl out of it.

She looked like she was on the verge of tears, and I had never seen her that upset before. And I didn't care. My accusation had clearly done enough damage because Andy just stood there silently, mouth open, unable to say anything else. I took that as a sign that the conversation was over.

"Now if you'll excuse me, my real friend is waiting for me." And with that, I turned abruptly on my heel and walked towards Holly instead.

"Let's get outta here," I said shortly. Holly said nothing but she followed me as I headed towards the parking lot.

We were silent and the cold air swirling around us felt like nothing compared to the chilliness I felt spreading in my bones. I didn't know if I should be upset, frustrated, or mad. Or should I be crying right now?

I wondered if Dov and Chris splitting from their lunch group had prompted her to finally come and find me. Or if her guilty conscience had finally kicked into play. Whatever the reason behind her approaching me, it wasn't appreciated. In fact, it was very much despised. The good vibes that I had gotten from my test score were all but obliviated.

We got to Holly's car and loaded them as usual. She hadn't said a word the entire time, but instead just walked silently besides me, a solid presence.

"I want to hit something," I announced as Holly shut the car door.

She looked up with an unexpected look on her face. "Hit something?" she asked with a baffled expression.

"Yeah," I nodded resolutely.

After a moment's thought, a look of understanding came across Holly's face. "Sure. You wanna go now?"

"Yeah. I'll drive. Leave your car here. We'll get it later."

She followed me to my BMW and we drove silently to the batting cages. The silence should have been uncomfortable. But it wasn't. I should have been by myself—I normally preferred to be by myself when I was upset. But I wasn't by myself. And I didn't want to be. I didn't know what it was about Holly. What was it about her that made me want to be with her when I was upset?

Was it because she wasn't bombarding me with questions? I could tell she wanted to ask. But she didn't. Instead she sat there and turned on the car radio to play some classical music. I turned to give her a weird look, but she just shrugged at me and leaned back to listen.

I had always thought classical music was stuffy old people music. But there was something soothing about it. It was a nice break from the head banging music I usually listened to. That stuff usually got my heart beating fast and made me super agitated. But this music was different in a good way.

When we arrived at the batting cages, we still hadn't said a word to each other. We rented the equipment and the batting cage spot; there weren't many people there as it was a weekday. We were able to get a spot right away. Wordlessly, Holly waited outside the cage and let me take the first turn.

The resounding smack when my bat made contact with the ball was satisfying to no end. There was nothing quite like swinging that heavy wooden stick (really that's all it was) and smacking the shit out of a ball flying at you. I kept going and swinging and resetting until I thought my arms were going to fall off.

Even then, I kept instructing Holly to push the button over and over.

"Again."

Hit. The bat felt like it had tripled in weight by this point so I let the bat tip fall onto the plate on the ground to give my arms a break before lifting it up again. I could feel the blisters forming on my hands.

"Again."

Hit. That had been a good one.

"Again."

"Gail…" Holly called in response. I stared impatiently at the machine at the other end of the cages. No ball was released.

"I said again," I snapped.

"Gail," Holly's voice was patient, soft.

Against my conscience, against my will, in response to my name being called I sank to my knees and covered my face. The bat fell with a slight thud onto the base underneath me. It was just too much.

I thought I had made progress. I thought that time had done its thing already. I thought that the pain had scabbed over and healed and wounded. But one conversation with Andy tore all that progress down.

I had resolved to keep it all inside but with Holly calling my name, it all came crumbling down again. I didn't know why. It was an involuntary response, almost instinctual. I couldn't explain it. The bat fell out of my hands and rolled away as I continued to crouch over that stupid plate. I wasn't crying though. The tears wouldn't come.

I just felt defeated. Utterly torn apart. I still couldn't understand why Nick and Andy had done this to me. Nothing about it made sense to me. As the thoughts threatened to overwhelm me, I felt the helmet being gently lifted off my head, and it felt like part of both the physical and mental weight had been lifted off of me.

"C'mon. Let's go sit."

Holly tugged me by my arm until I was in a standing position. We walked over to those same picnic tables and I took a seat, scrubbing my face roughly with my hands as Holly sat down on the bench across from me.

"I just don't get why," I finally broke the silence after a couple minutes.

"Sometimes there's no why," she told me immediately.

"There's no why as to why people are jerks?"

"There's no why as to why we fall for the people we do," Holly explained.

That caught my attention. It wasn't the explanation that I had been expecting. "What do you mean?"

"We fall for the people we do without paying any attention to the consequences. When those feelings come across us, we as humans are vulnerable to them and nothing we do can stop them. Feelings just happen. There's no why."

I couldn't explain it. I realized there were a lot of things that I couldn't explain when it came to Holly. On the surface, her words were just words. But to me, it sounded like...almost like she was speaking from experience. Her voice was full of conviction and the words didn't sound like she was just throwing them out there. But before I could give any more thought to the matter, Holly moved on talking.

"It's unfortunate that hurting you was a consequence of their feelings. It sucks. I get that. But...really, we fall for people we fall for. It's like a giant avalanche, you know? Once that tiny snowball gets rolling, it's unstoppable," Holly continued. "I'm in no way defending them, okay? It's no excuse for how they treated you. Cheating is never okay. They handled the situation in the worst way possible."

"Yeah they did," I nodded, looking down at the table.

"But nobody's perfect. We all fail inevitably. We all have our shortcomings."

I snorted. "Even you?"

"I'm not a robot," Holly replied with a scoff.

We fell into silence again as I became lost in my thoughts whirling around like a hurricane. Yeah, nobody's perfect; I'm sure as hell not, but you didn't see me running around stealing other people's boyfriends. Twisting anguish built within me and I didn't know what to do with myself. I was frustrated with how powerless I felt, how weak I must have looked in front of Holly.

"So what am I supposed to do?" I demanded, slamming my hands on the table because I saw no other way to release the pressure I felt increasing. The table's hard surface making contact with my palm did nothing to soothe the blisters I could feel forming and it stung like hell. I started cracking my knuckles out of a nervous habit. I couldn't see how I would ever feel better. I thought I had, but then...then today happened.

I didn't see it happen until it actually did but before I knew it, Holly had reached out and covered my hands with her own. As her hands wrapped around mine, they stilled my own nervous motions, partly by my own surprise at her gesture and partly because she held them so tight. My hands were usually freezing (Dov once teased that it was because I had a cold heart; I punched him in response and he never brought it up again) and in contrast Holly's felt like they were heaters. Her hands covered mine and I couldn't rationalize it into words. I had no idea what happened at the exact moment when her hands touched mine. But the one thing I knew was that right then, the feelings that had been building inside were put on hold. Instead of feeling lost, I felt grounded.

It really was something that couldn't be verbalized. I don't think even Holly knew what had happened; she was saying something and I realized I had totally zoned out during the last couple seconds.

"...just depends on you. There's no right or wrong. But it's okay to be upset. Just don't keep it all in, okay?"

"But isn't that why I'm here?" I kept my gaze on our hands, the back of my mind still trying to figure out exactly what happened.

"You can't take it to the extreme either," Holly pointed out patiently. "Don't push yourself past your physical limit. But I'll be down anytime you want to just release some energy."

The thoughts that had been swirling in my head had ceased. It was like the hurricane had come to a complete stop. I heard and thought of nothing except Holly's voice. But despite hearing her voice, I don't know if I was _really_ listening to her words.

"...give it some time. You don't have to act right now. You don't have to say anything to them."

I was so mindful of the fact that Holly's hands were still tightly wrapped around mine. I couldn't remember the last time I had let somebody hold my hands like that, if ever. It should have felt uncomfortable. But it didn't, and I couldn't explain why.

"Okay," I finally blurted out, because I didn't know what else to say.

"Okay?" Holly smiled and squeezed my hands a final time before letting them go.

"Yeah. Let's go back again."

Her caring expression changed to one of suspicion as her eyes narrowed and she pursed her lips. "Already?"

"Yeah, I promise I won't over do it."

Seeing that she still wasn't convinced, I held three fingers up next to my head. "Scout's honor. If I over do it, you can tie me up and drag me away."

Holly's eyebrows quirked in response to my pledge. "Oh, you bet I will."

* * *

"Feel better now?" Holly asked as we left the batting cages a couple hours later.

"Yeah. Lots."

She was right, if I didn't overdo it, if I took a break and let Holly hit around for awhile, it didn't feel exhausting. It felt just right. Like my balance had been restored again; I didn't experience that pent-up rage that had consumed me when Andy confronted me. Nor did I feel the weariness that had come over me the first round of batting.

We drove back to school as the darkness settled in around us.

"Hey, thanks," I said as I parked beside her car still in the school parking lot.

"Sure, no problem. See you tomorrow," she replied as she climbed out of my car. "Or I guess, see you all the way home. Stalker." She shut down the passenger door with her usual grace before I could get a word out.

I turned down the radio and lowered the window. "I'm not the stalker if I'm the one in front!"

Holly's laughter rang through the empty lot before she climbed into her own car. I could've left right away, I suppose. But it was dark and part of me wanted to make sure she got inside her car okay. And got it started okay. Especially with her car's age, who knew what would've happened if I just left and it turned out her car broke down again. I grinned and shook my head. No matter how old and beat up that car was, she still loved and treasured it. Ridiculous, but endearing at the same time.

I made sure that I was the one in front as I drove home with Holly's headlights shining dully (yes, dully; it was nowhere near as bright as my own car's headlights) the whole way behind me, I realized that I was so grateful that I had met Holly this year. She had transferred into this school just in time. To be my friend and rock. She managed to somehow sweep up my broken pieces and was helping me to tape them together.

It wasn't until I got home that I noticed the strange feeling within me. Or to be more accurate, it was a lack of my usual feeling of vulnerability. As I changed into my favorite sweatpants, I wondered why that despite the fact that I had exposed my weakest side to Holly, I didn't feel the need to cover it up or show that I was doubly strong the next time I saw her. I had always needed to prove my strength after showing weakness—call it a survival instinct or whatever. But it had been unbelievably okay to share with Holly. She had shown me that it was okay to be weak. We can't be strong all the time.

Holly didn't try to give me advice. She didn't force me to do what she told me to do. Besides homework, of course. But she let me make my own decisions. She didn't give me a lecture about how I should forgive Andy. She just gave me her own opinion and explanation of things. She was unopinionated and unbiased, and it was probably the exact opposite of how I dealt with things.

Instead of dwelling on a situation that I couldn't fix, I realized that there was a telling trend that was starting to form when it came to Holly. The uncomfortable feelings that typically, or rather _always_, came with actions such as sharing things with others were seemingly infinitely absent with Holly. A second trend was that I could never explain _why_. I decided to chalk it up to the fact that part of it must've been because we were so different, so opposite.

I shoved the offending thoughts and questions out of my head as I settled in to start on my homework. I already had enough of life's mysterious questions swirling around me at the moment, I didn't need anymore.

* * *

A/N: Eek, I rewrote this chapter about a billion times. Hope the final product came out alright. Also this is turning to be a lot slower of a burn than I had originally intended. For that, I apologize. But STICK WITH IT you guys. Patience is a virtue. And also, what's up with RB's season premiere? What's this about a May premiere date?


	8. Chapter 8

Although I had no idea the pattern started or when it established itself, but over the course of the semester, I found myself spending a ton of time with Holly. We were either at one of three places—Mr. Buckner's donut place, her house, or the batting cages. It first started when either one of us craved an after school snack, we would drop by to get some donuts.

Then she suggested studying together to be more efficient. Although we weren't taking any of the same classes except for biology, she still knew loads about all the classes I was taking. It seemed like she just retained information endlessly. I had a habit of forgetting class material as soon as I took tests. Holly had already taken most of the classes that I took at her previous school and I wasn't one to pass up free answers on homework assignments. So we spent time at her house and did homework together.

And her parents would invite me to stay for dinner. I didn't want to at first; I was never really good at the whole parent business. I had always limited interactions with Nick's parents. But then I smelled the food. So I stayed. It was nice to eat a real meal at a proper dinner table with other people instead of eating junk food at my desk by myself. In fact, it had begun to felt like that I only returned to my own house to sleep and shower. Dinner was never as awkward as I thought it would be. Conversation was never lacking and the awkward silences that I feared didn't occur.

It was a bizarre experience watching the way that Holly's family interacted. Her mom was clearly a busy woman. Oftentimes, she would be out of town for a couple days promoting her books—historical fiction books, Holly explained to me. She used to be a professor but later decided to pursue writing, successfully too. When she was here, she would take the time to sit down with us and talk. And when she was away, Holly's dad jumped right into the picture to take over the home cooking. It was like they played tag team. It was clear that they made their family life a priority and I envied that. It would have been an understatement to say that it was opposite of the Peck family. Police career came first for both my parents.

But it was nice. It became routine. I had thought that the idea of a published author and a mechanic together on paper sounded strange, but watching Holly's parents in real life—nothing seemed off about it at all. They got along like any other couple. In fact, probably better than any other parents I knew, including my parents. They took the time to talk to each other and seemingly never snapped at each other. If they did, it must've been when I wasn't there. Which didn't happen a lot.

Everything got a lot better. As time went on, the sting of Nick and Andy's betrayal hurt less and less. In hindsight, I realized that Mr. Buckner's words from ages ago rang true. Only time could heal certain wounds. You couldn't speed up the process in any way or manner. Some days I even considered making peace with the two of them. These days were a rarity though. Besides, I had too much going on—keeping my grades up and working on college applications.

Several weeks before the end of the semester, Anderson announced that we would be doing a frog dissection in class at the end of the week.

"Oh, gross," I gagged as Holly and I left class.

"Come on, that stuff freaks you out?" Holly laughed, as she tried in vain to keep the wind from blowing her hair in her face. The wind was starting to turn into the kind that almost seems to pierce your very bones. Winter was definitely on the doorstep. What little trees we did have on campus were beginning to look naked without all their leaves.

"It _doesn't_ freak you out?" I demanded. "Cutting things open? Pass."

"I think it's rather fascinating, actually, to be able to see the inside of a living organism. You can really see how everything works and functions," she explained.

I didn't bother to dignify that with a response. She would never be able to convince me that cutting open a dead thing was fascinating or interesting in any way.

We drove home together; it was Holly's turn to drive today and she turned onto her own driveway as we arrived in our neighborhood. It was an unspoken pact that we would just do so.

"I'm excited," Holly declared as we unloaded her usual burdens from the car. "Think of all the stuff we'll get to see!"

"Yeah, guts?" I crossed my eyes and made a face. I followed Holly up the driveway to her house and pretended to vomit.

She punched me in the arm. She was the only friend that I would let her get away with doing that. Anybody else and I would've kicked them where it hurts the most. "No! Well, yes. But so much more than that! We'll see its three-chambered heart and its lungs and its intestines and its reproductive parts," Holly blabbed on endlessly.

"Please stop," I begged. I was already feeling nauseous from her talking about all the parts. I had no idea how I was going to handle the actual dissection.

"What's the matter, can't take it?" Holly taunted. "Imagine all the mushy and gooey stuff and we'll have to poke at it and cut it open and see what's inside."

"I hate you." I threw her books on the living room table where we would do our homework after grabbing a snack in the kitchen.

Holly's mom was in the kitchen making some kind of drink for herself. She looked up when Holly and I went into the kitchen.

"Hey girls," she smiled at us, busying herself with the kettle on the stove. "How was school?"

"We get to do a dissection," Holly proclaimed. "I'm excited," she clapped gleefully and rubbed her hands together vigorously.

Holly's mom laughed joyfully. I had noticed that Holly got her laugh from her mom. Their laughs were both quite distinct. Loud, but not obnoxious. Contagious probably would have been the closest word to describe it. "Don't get creeped out by her," she explained to me. "She's just always been into that science stuff."

"Well that makes one of us," I replied, reaching for the cereal boxes that they always kept on top of their fridge.

"I remember I used to find her collecting insects and examining them under her little microscope before sticking a needle through them. She used to have this giant case of all the insects she collected," Mrs. Stewart recalled fondly.

"Murderer," I shot at Holly.

Holly looked affronted. "It was all in the name of research. Don't start with me."

Mrs. Stewart laughed again at the two of us before toasting us with her cup of herbal tea. It sure smelled like herbs. "Have fun," she told us before leaving to go upstairs to her study.

As we sat in the kitchen munching on snacks, I lamented at the weight I had gained recently.

"I blame you," I told Holly, stuffing my mouth with more cereal. "Your parents keep feeding me and I just keep gaining weight. You guys should just leave me to my cheese puffs. I swear I've gained 2 pounds since I met you."

Holly rolled her eyes at me. "Wow, all of 2 pounds? I can really see it showing," her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Shut up."

"Well if you feel that way, you should come running with me!" Holly proposed.

"Hell no, I'm not that desperate," I scoffed. Holly always took some time before dinner to go for a run. I opted to stay behind to do "work". Oftentimes when she was out running, Holly's dad would get home from work at the shop. He was a nice guy. The very definition of a nice guy. A little gruff-looking when he didn't shave and a hint of a brown scraggly beard would form, but still. A nice guy. He seemed to have permanent smudges on his chin or forehead from working at the auto shop all day. He would good-naturedly drag me outside to show me the inner workings of a car. I could now say that I knew how to fix several emergency situations—replacing a flat tire and jumpstarting a car among them. I should've learned them a long time ago, but I had always figured that if anything happened, either Nick or my father could've helped me.

"It won't be that bad. You'll feel great afterwards," she promised. "We'll go easy at first, I promise."

"I don't know…" I thought about it. The idea of real exercise had never really appealed to me. P.E. was always a joke and excruciatingly painful when we had to run. But those 2 pounds were kind of starting to bug me.

"One mile. Easy enough right?" Holly made it sound like it was no big deal. Which was true. For her.

"I run one mile during P.E. and it is _not_ easy."

"First of all, the mile run only happens like once every two weeks. Second, I know you—I bet you don't even run. I'm sure you just walk the whole thing."

I drummed my fingers on the table. "I don't have shorts. Or shoes."

"Don't give me that excuse. We're literally a stone's throw from your house. Even so, I have some here you can use," Holly said, pushing back from the kitchen counter. "Let's go!"

"I'm gonna regret this," I muttered.

* * *

I did regret it. Oh, I so regretted it. I felt like I needed to crawl back into Holly's house. It felt like my feet refused to obey my commands to move.

"Easy, my ass."

Holly laughed as she walked slowly beside me up her driveway. I looked at her; she looked like she hadn't moved a muscle. Not a hair out of place, not even a glimpse of weariness. Nor was she gulping at the air like I was. Her glasses weren't even skewed or anything! The way she looked right now, she could probably walk into a sporting gear advertisement photoshoot and fit right in. This girl was going to be the end of me.

"It wasn't that bad."

"For you, maybe," I heaved. I stopped a couple feet from the front door to catch my breathe. I leaned my hands on my knees and blinked hard. It felt like stars were spinning around my head. I had made the rookie mistake of trying to keep up with Holly. Unfortunately, she had set a blistering pace and in an effort not to seem like a spineless idiot, I sprinted in order to stay with her.

And now I was paying the price.

"Not bad though. I was amazed that you could even keep up with me at all." Holly leaned against the porch pole and grinned at me. I hated how breezy she looked.

"So you were testing me? You ran that fast on purpose?" I demanded, looking sideways and up at her. My face was throbbing and I was blowing out breaths like a fish out of water.

"Oh come on, I wouldn't do that."

I shook my head vigorously. "Lies."

"Maybe."

When I finally felt like I could move, we went back to the kitchen, where I immediately proceeded to gulp down an insane amount of water.

"Better?" Holly leaned over the kitchen counter and propped her head on her hands. She watched me with an amused grin on her face.

I swallowed another gulp of water. The cool liquid soothed my burning innards and quenched the thirst that I had developed. "Slightly. I don't know how you do this on a daily basis." I still felt like I was going to throw up. "That mile felt like the longest mile of my life."

I watched as Holly's grin twitched slightly. "It _was_ a mile right?" I demanded.

She cleared her throat vehemently, delaying her response and simultaneously heightening my suspicion. "I might've kept you running for...a bit longer than that."

I gaped at her. "Exactly how much longer is 'a bit'?"

"Uhm...double that?"

"You made me run _two_ miles?" I nearly screeched. I hadn't even noticed. I just did my best to keep up with Holly and totally lost track of time. And especially at the pace that Holly had set, I hadn't detected that we covered more ground than I ever did in P.E. She cheated me.

Holly held her hands out in defense. "Hey, you didn't even notice! See, you did good," she protested.

There were no words. So instead, I took the water bottle in my hand and flung what water was left in it at in her face in a delightful act of vengeance.

Holly sputtered as the water dripped down her face and onto the counter. Evidently, the cat got her tongue too. I snickered and enjoyed a much-needed sense of satisfaction for taking revenge.

She removed her glasses slowly and wiped them off carefully on the track jacket she had changed into for running. I was surprised that she didn't make any moves to retaliate. She dried her face off with her arm, as much as she could before placing her glasses back on and staring at me in the eye. She pursed her lips and wrinkled her nose. A cold feeling came over me as I realized too late that she was going to retaliate.

"Peck, you are dead."

I swore and scrambled out of the kitchen, running for my life, leading her on a merry chase through her house. I ran out into the front yard with Holly right on my heels. I had no idea where my energy was coming from, considering the fact that Holly had just made me run 2 miles.

I was halfway across her lawn and couldn't hear Holly behind me anymore so I stopped and glanced behind me to see if she had given up. I was rewarded with a jetstream of water straight to my face.

"What the—" I spat as the jetstream of water continued to drench my entire body. When everything had stopped and I was thoroughly soaked, I looked up in disbelief. To my surprise, Holly's dad was standing on the porch with an embarrassed smile on his face. I hadn't even seen him when I ran out into the yard.

Holly was standing right by him, twirling a hose in her hands with the most evil grin I had ever seen on a person.

"Did you really just—?" I sputtered nonsensically.

"Sorry Gail," Holly's dad called out to me, clearly trying hard not to laugh at my miserable state. "I was just watering the plants and she grabbed it from me. My fault."

I should have been angry. I was tired. I had been tricked. I was standing outside in chilling weather _completely_ drenched. I'm talking like I just jumped into a pool with all my clothes on wet. And then took a shower after. That wet. And with the weather as it was, it felt like ice-cold water. I was pretty sure that icicles were already forming in my hair.

But instead, a feeling of total...I guess carefreeness was the closest word to it, came over me. And rather than go storming off, I threw my head back and laughed out loud. I couldn't help it. I felt like a kid again. It reminded me of simpler times as a child, of before Steve and I grew apart as teens. When we used to actually _play_ together.

Here I was, a senior in high school, running around and screaming like a little girl. And it felt unbelievably great. Holly started laughing with me and the two of us kept cackling for at least a full minute like hyenas on laughing gas. I laughed a lot more with Holly. It came easier, not like the chuckles that Dov or Chris managed to squeeze out of me.

At some point, Holly's dad grabbed the hose back from her, presumably to get back to watering the plants. But to my surprise, he turned the hose on her. And he got every inch of her. I cackled in delight as I watched Holly try to wrestle the hose away from her dad without succeeding, screeching the whole time. I felt avenged watching from the lawn. When her dad finally felt like revenge had been served for me, he relented, leaving Holly just as drenched as I was. If not more.

The two of us, both shivering at this point, marched back into the house to change. I made sure to give Holly's dad a high-five on the way in. He winked at me and gave me a thumbs up as he continued to water the plants on the porch.

Life was good.

* * *

"No, I can't do this. Nope."

"Stop being a baby. Just stick it in there."

I cringed and closed my eyes.

"No, you can't close your eyes! Keep them open, otherwise how're you going to know where it goes?"

"Then _you_ do it!" I demanded, setting down the scalpel on the lab table with a slam. Dissection Day had finally come. We were in the full work-up gear. And by gear, I meant the shitty plastic lab goggles that Anderson had provided us with. And some rubber gloves.

"Fine. I'll do it," Holly snapped. She picked up the scalpel and leaned in closer to the dead frog on the table. God, I wanted to puke just from looking at it and we hadn't even gotten to the inside of it.

Without any sort of hesitation, she neatly sliced several lines across the frog's belly and carefully peeled both sides of the body open. I was expecting for my knees to give out any second. But instead, as everything inside became visible, I realized it wasn't so bad after all.

"Whoa, you can see everything," I remarked, leaning in closer to get a better look through the foggy goggles.

"That's what I told you," Holly sniffed, setting the scalpel down to pick up some forceps.

"Look at the tiny heart!" I exclaimed. I reached with one finger with the intention of poking at it.

"Don't touch it yet!" Holly slapped my hand away.

"Damn, okay Miss Bossy Pants." But I did what I was told and watched in fascination as Holly proceeded to separate each organ and cut them out. She finally let me touch everything after she had carefully laid everything out on the pre-set tray.

It wasn't as gross as I had thought it was going to be. It was pretty cool, actually. Smelled terrible though. So pungent. I kept wanting to pinch my nose shut but remembered that my hands were touching pretty gross guts. They should have given us some nose clippers or something as the stench of a dozen frogs being cut open filled the classroom.

When we had made our proper observations and diagrams about each organ and finished the dissection, we still had a few minutes left in class to clean up everything. And scrub the hell out of my hands. I felt like the rubber gloves weren't enough protective material. Maybe I should have worn two layers of those gloves.

"I guess that wasn't so bad," I admitted as we left the classroom.

"Told you," Holly replied without hesitation.

"Stop saying 'I told you'."

"But I did tell you."

"Whatever."

"Didn't take you for such a queasy little girl," Holly teased.

"Hey, I didn't throw up or anything," I retorted.

"No, you just squealed 'I can't do this'," Holly laughed, raising her voice to mimic a little girl screeching.

"I do _not_ sound like that."

We had just reached the parking lot when I heard the sound of footsteps behind the two of us.

"Hey, Holly."

Holly and I both turned at the same time. Behind us was a dark-skinned girl clutching her notebook tightly to her chest. The first thing I noticed about her was her hair. Damn that thing was big. But it actually looked really good on her, all puffed up like that. If I ever tried that hairstyle, I'd probably look like a puffed up q-tip.

"Oh hey, Taylor. What's up?" Holly's voice changed slightly and it didn't escape my notice. I don't know what it was. It sounded like it had gone slightly higher.

"Just wanted to see if you were free sometime uhm...maybe tomorrow? Since it's a Saturday and all?" Taylor shuffled her feet uneasily and it was quite obvious she was really uncomfortable. I looked at her more closely; she seemed relatively normal, besides the whole nervous aura coming off of her in waves. She was clutching her notebook so hard to her chest that I thought she was trying to absorb it into her body. That was when I noticed the rainbow band on her wrist. That made me look twice.

A rainbow band? Weren't we a little too old to be obsessed with rainbows?

"Yeah, I think so…" Holly said thoughtfully. "You wanna do something?"

Taylor visibly perked up; she grinned a very bright smile and her demeanor changed instantly. Mine, on the other hand...I was starting to feel slightly uncomfortable. I felt like an intruder eavesdropping on a private conversation.

"I'm gonna, uh—" I started and stopped, feeling awkward. "I'll meet you at the car, Holly." I walked away before Holly said anything else, still carrying her books.

It had been my turn to drive today, so I unlocked my car and threw her books in, disregarding the care that Holly had instilled into me. Curiosity overcame me and instead of hopping into the car and waiting like I should have, I sat on my car's rear bumper, peering over at Holly and Taylor. Maybe I should have stayed over there after all. Now I couldn't even hear what they were talking about.

They kept talking. For a long time. And they laughed a lot.

I got grumpier as the time passed. I shoved my hands into my coat pockets and blew breaths of impatience.

But finally, Holly seemed to remember that I was waiting for her. She turned her head quickly and waved to me. She held up one finger, indicating that she would just be another minute. Hell, it better be only another minute. I was ready to leave without her at this point.

I was about ready to holler across the parking lot that I was going to leave when I saw Holly step closer to Taylor and give her a giant hug. A giant hug that lasted a couple seconds that...probably lasted longer than it should have.

As soon as that realization hit me, I had the most unexpected reaction—my stomach turned.

_What?_

I forgot about Holly and Taylor standing there. My impatience was replaced with another feeling that I couldn't quite pinpoint.

_What?_

It dawned on me that I had never seen her portray that kind of sentiment to anybody besides her parents. To fully envelope somebody in her arms like that. Suddenly it felt like I didn't know her. I didn't know how one hug invoked that feeling.

No, I couldn't explain it at all. In that moment, I was only sure of one thing—and that was the fact I was unhappy with Holly. I watched Holly walk towards me, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and it only reaffirmed the fact that I was pissed. I hadn't even seen which way Taylor walked off in. And it didn't help that Holly seemed to have a bit of a silly grin on her face. Like she had totally forgotten that I was still waiting for her.

"Hey, sorry about that. Thanks for waiting," Holly said as soon as she was within earshot. I nodded succinctly in reply and climbed into the driver's seat.

I gunned the engine to zoom out of the parking lot, ignoring the stupid speed bumps the school put everywhere to stop people from speeding. Everything clattered around inside the car and Holly had to brace her hand against the top of the car.

"You alright?" Holly asked curiously.

"Yeah. Fine," I replied, lying my ass off. What was I supposed to say? I didn't even know what I could say. _I'm mad at you and I'm not exactly sure why_.

I drove onto our street and pulled into her driveway. Holly opened the door and clambered out of her passenger seat. "You comin'?" she asked, as she realized I hadn't moved.

"Uhh...no. I'm gonna go home. Lots of stuff to do," I mumbled.

"Yeah, I know. Me too," Holly drew out the last syllable slowly. "That's why we work on stuff together, right?"

"I don't want to be distracted," I snapped at Holly, turning to look at her hanging on the passenger door. Her eyebrows shot way up her forehead and her mouth twitched. I had grown to notice the difference in her twitches. This one was in slight anger, with no hint of amusement.

"Sure. No problem."

She slammed the door to my car and I watched her stalk up the porch steps stiffly, the very same porch where a couple days ago I had enjoyed her company. And now…she didn't even turn around to look back or wave. I didn't blame her.

I scrubbed my face roughly before I put the car into reverse and drove back to my own house. It was strange to be coming home while there was still daylight. I had been arriving home well after the sun had set recently.

With a sigh, I resolved to do my homework by myself. Despite what I had told Holly, I was still now very much distracted even more than before. My stomach was still turning and I thought I had put it together. The fact that Holly might hang out with other people besides myself hadn't really occurred to me until now. It had been a naive thought, I now understood. Was the fact that Holly might've had a life outside of our friendship so hard to believe, so hard to fathom, so hard to digest? I couldn't understand why it was bugging me so much. It made sense. We didn't even eat lunch in the same group. In fact, every time I had asked her about where she was at lunch and with whom, she had always avoided the question.

_Just with some friends_, she'd reply.

_What friends?_, I'd ask to clarify.

_Nobody you know_, she'd brush off before changing the subject.

It wasn't until I replayed the after school scene a thousand times in my head before I realized it. That rainbow. It wasn't just some kiddy obsession. I threw my pencil down on the desk and leaned back in my chair, staring at the ceiling.

I hadn't realized it before because I had rarely seen it used in that manner. Taylor hadn't just been asking to hang out with Holly. She was asking her out on a _date_. Why else would she have been so nervous?

I couldn't wrap my head around it. Holly hadn't been affronted and took it all in coolly. That could only mean one thing. The pieces fit together and the image became quite clear in my head.

It struck me that I didn't know Holly at all. She had been hiding something the entire time throughout our friendship. This twisting and tangled feeling in my stomach was of betrayal. The gut-wrenching feeling was there because she had hidden something from me. Just like Nick had.

So I did something that I probably shouldn't have. I picked up my phone and made a call.

"Hey, did you want to hang?"

* * *

A/N: Whew, it's been awhile, huh? My apologies. A combination of life opportunities and a mild case of writer's block got in the way. I had to keep my focus on life and couldn't even think about the fandom for a good chunk of time (sorry). But hey, yay for that Gail/Holly kiss in the S5 promo right? Couple more weeks left until the premiere. I had wanted to finish this fic before then, but looks like that won't be happening...we've still got a ways to go. Leave a thought, I love hearing (reading?) them. They make my day!


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